In recent weeks, Spotify has been gradually releasing country-level data as part of its annual Loud & Clear music economics report, an initiative that it says makes it “the only streaming provider to share data on artist remuneration.”
To be clear, that data is aggregate only (Spotify won’t tell you how much Bad Bunny earned in the UK last year, for example), and the data it provides isn’t always consistent – it provides one set of metrics for one country, and another set of metrics for another. Sometimes these metrics overlap, allowing for country-to-country comparisons, and sometimes they don’t.
Nonetheless, the Loud & Clear data do give us an insight into the dynamics of various digital music markets that those of us who aren’t privy to the confidential data analyses of streaming services haven’t had before.
In its latest release – and apparently its last national-level release for the year – Spotify has unveiled numbers on music streaming in Spain.
One number jumps out: In 2023, the royalties generated by Spanish artists on Spotify exceeded EUR €123 million (USD $133 million at the average exchange rate for 2023). That’s almost quadruple the royalties generated by Spanish artists back in 2017.
One thing to note about these numbers is that they are specifically royalties generated on Spotify, and given that Spotify has rapidly grown its subscriber base over these years, the massive increase in royalties generated by Spanish artists is at least as much a reflection of Spotify’s growth as it is of the Spanish music market’s growth.
Nonetheless, Spain saw solid growth in its music industry in 2023, with revenues up 15% YoY according to data from Spanish industry group PROMUSICAE. Spotify royalties from Spanish artists grew 24% in the same period.
This also compares favorably to the European Union as a whole, which saw Spotify royalties grow 16% YoY in 2023, according to an earlier Loud & Clear report.
However, Spain accounted for about 8.2% of the €1.5 billion ($1.62 billion) in royalties generated by EU artists on the platform in 2023 – a slight underperformance, given that Spain has about 10.9% of the EU’s population.
Also notable: There were around 1,300 Spanish artists who generated at least €10,000 in royalties on Spotify in 2023, more than triple the number in 2017. Despite this rapid growth, Spain accounted for only 8.7% of the roughly 15,000 European Union artists who generated more than €10,000 in royalties in 2023, once again underperforming relative to its population size.
Spotify also reported that more than 50% of royalties generated by Spanish artists came from outside Spain. Compare this to Canada, where 92% of the royalties generated by local artists came from outside the country.
This suggests that Spain isn’t quite as good at exporting its music as some other comparable countries – perhaps surprising, given the popularity these days of Latin music, which is primarily in the Spanish language.
But that may yet turn around. In 2013, Spanish artists were discovered more than 3.1 billion times by Spotify listeners. On this metric, Spain overperformed, accounting for 11.1% of all the EU music discovered by Spotify listeners in 2023.
(Spain’s success on this metric might also have to do with the fact that some local music trends in EU countries are really local. Polish rap may be huge in Poland, but it doesn’t have much of an audience outside the country.)
According to Spotify, reguetón and flamenco pop are among the most popular music genres that Spain exports, although rap, trap and melodic pop also play a prominent role.
Finally, some 60% of royalties came from indie artists or labels (compared to 65% in France).
You can check out Spotify’s country-level data on the UK, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Sweden here.
Spotify’s data on Brazil, Canada, France and the European Union can be found here.
Music Business Worldwide