Nielsen Music Reveals 2018 Top U.S. Industry Trends, Record-Breaking Highlights

2018 Top U.S. Industry Trends, Record-Breaking Highlights

NIELSEN has released its 2018 Music Year-End Highlights which includes music consumption for the 12 month period beginning DECEMBER 29th, 2017 through JANUARY 3rd, 2019 (as compared to 12/30/16-1/4/18), as well as consumer trends and behaviors that shaped the year in music across today's most popular platforms, including streaming, social media, radio, film, and more.

New to this year’s year-end highlights is the integration of GRACENOTE’s Sonic Style music descriptor system that leverages audio analysis and machine learning technology to classify the “style” of songs at the recording level. 

According to NIELSEN, the music industry experienced significant overall growth in 2018, with total album equivalent audio consumption up 23% over 2017, driven by a 49% increase in on-demand audio song streams compared to last year.  The top-streamed on-demand song (audio and video combined) is DRAKE’s “God’s Plan” with over 1.5 billion total streams, topping the Hot 100 for 11 weeks. “God’s Plan” also led total song consumption (digital song sales with streaming equivalent on-demand audio) with 7.4 million units, including over 918 million on-demand audio streams. ED SHEERAN’s “Perfect” was the leader in song sales with 1.3 million in permanent downloads so far this year.

Key Year-End Insights (through week-ending 1/3/19):

• Music streaming volume continued to rise with the total number of on-demand audio song streams reaching 611 billion in 2018, a sizable 49% increase over the same time period in 2017.
• Overall on-demand music streaming volume, including video, surpassed 900 billion streams, an increase of 43% over the same period last year.
• Vinyl continued to soar, up 15% over the same period last year with record-breaking sales during the week of the 11th annual Record Store Day.
• Despite sharp declines in Digital purchasing, Digital Audio consumption (Digital Albums + Track Equivalent Albums + On-Demand Audio Streaming Equivalent Albums) was up a healthy 34%.
• Four songs surpassed 1 billion on-demand streams this year, including DRAKE’s “God’s Plan”, JUICE WRLD’s “Lucid Dreams (Forget Me)”, DRAKE’s “In My Feelings” and XXXTENTACION’s “Sad”.

"With continued momentum, 2018 has shown no evidence of slowing music consumption with a hearty 49% increase in on-demand audio song streams compared to last year," said NIELSEN SVP/Industry Insights DAVID BAKULA. "We can attribute that to increased access to music with new smart speakers and connected devices that have helped catapult engagement and consumption to record highs.  With the anticipation of 5G, we expect that new connected hardware and faster 'always on' connections will continue to drive consumption across all platforms and channels to keep music at the forefront of entertainment in 2019 and beyond."

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