BuzzAngle: Streaming, Rap Rules 2018 Music Consumption

2018 Data

BUZZANGLE's music-consumption data for 2018 found continued trends of increased streaming and falling sales and downloads, while Hip-Hop and Rap remain as the most popular music genre.

For instance...

* Audio on-demand streams set a new record high of 534.6 billion, up 42% over the previous record of 376.9 billion streams in 2017. 

* Total on-demand streams of 809.5 billion streams, up 35% over the previous record of 598 billion streams in 2017.
* During the 4th quarter of 2018, subscription streams accounted for 85% of all on-demand audio streams (157.4 billion).
* Subscription streams grew 50% during the 4th quarter of 2018 and accounted for 85% of total audio streams for the quarter. In 2017, subscription streams were up 57% over 2016.
* Song consumption in 2018 reached a new high of 5.8 billion, up 27% over 2017.
* Vinyl album sales were up 12% in 2018 after seeing a 20% growth in 2017 over 2016. Vinyl album sales accounted for 13.7% of all physical album sales, up from 10% in 2017 and 8% in 2016.
* Only nine songs were streamed more than 500 million times in 2018, compared to 16 in 2017, six in 2016 and two in 2015.
* Exactly 417 songs were streamed more than 100 million times in 2018, compared to 383 songs in 2017, 226 songs in 2016 and 111 songs in 2015.
* The top 1,000 streamed songs in 2018 accounted for 121.8 billion streams, 122.2 billion in 2017, 91.8 billion in 2016. 
* Not one song broke one million sales in 2018. Last year, two songs had more than two million song downloads, compared to five songs and 16 in 2015. In 2017, only 14 songs sold more than one million song downloads compared to 36 in 2016 and 60 songs in 2015.
* The top 1,000 song sales accounted for 92.3 million sales (23% of all song sales); which is down drastically from 170.9 million sales in 2017 (a drop of 53%).

Industry Trends - Genre

* The Hip-Hop/Rap genre had the largest genre-share of total album consumption, 21.7% (up from 17.5% in 2017). Pop and Rock followed with 20.1% and 14% respectively. 

* For the third year in a row, Hip-Hop/Rap was the top genre in terms of total song consumption, 24.7% (up from 20.9% in 2017), followed by Pop (19%) and Rock (12%).
* In that same time, Urban songs (Hip-Hop/Rap and R&B) were the most-streamed songs among all genres, comprising 36% of all on-demand streams, up from 32% in 2017. Pop was second at 19.3%, up from 15.6% in 2017.
* Streaming of titles in the Rock genre (including Rock, Alternative, Metal, Indie Rock, Punk) went from 19% in 2017 down to 11% in 2018 -- the same percentage as Latin songs.
* Album titles from the Rock & Pop genres each accounted for 26% of all album sales in 2018, down from 29% and 19.7% respectively, in 2017. Country garnered 13% of all album sales, while Urban (Hip-Hop/Rap and R&B) had 12%.
* Three years ago more than 65% of all vinyl album sales fell into the Rock genre. Last year, it was 42% of vinyl albums and two years ago, it was 54%. Pop title sales rose from 14% in 2017 to 26% in 2018. Urban titles pulled a 14.4% share.
* 26% of song sales in 2018 were titles from the Pop genre, 25% were Urban songs, and 15% were Rock and Country individually.
*  Latin is the genre most dominated by streaming, with 95% of total Latin consumption comes from on-demand streaming activity. A close second at 92% is Hip-Hop/Rap’s total consumption.

Even more data points can be found here.

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