BuzzAngle Finds 2018 U.S. Music Consumption Growing

Double Digit Growth

BUZZANGLE MUSIC’s 2018 report on U.S. music consumption is out with overall consumption growth up double digits. 2018 total consumption showed a 16.2% increase over 2017, which last year was up 12.8% over 2016.

On-demand audio stream consumption continued to fuel the overall growth, increasing 41.8% to 534.6B streams, up from 376.9B streams last year. Total on-demand streams, including both audio and video, topped 809B for the year. In the fourth quarter of 2018, a dominant 85% of all audio streams were subscription-based.

The number of unique titles audio-streamed in 2018 totaled 3M more than in 2017, a 9.2% increase. Consumers are exercising their choice to explore new music, which is a terrific sign for the industry. Album sales and song sales continued to decline, 18.2% and 28.8% respectively, and physical sales declined 15.3%. Vinyl sales continued to grow with an increase of 11.9% over 2016.

Consumption Highlights 

• Audio on-demand streams set a new record high of 534.6 billion, up 42% over 2017. The previous record was set in 2017 with 376.9 billion streams.
• Total on-demand streams set a new high in 2018 with 809.5 billion streams, up 35% over the previous record in 2017 (598 billion).
• During the 4th quarter of 2018, subscription streams accounted for 85% of all ondemand 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.
• There were only nine songs that were streamed more than 500 million times in 2018, compared to 16 in 2017,  six in 2016 and two in 2015.
• There were 417 songs that 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.
• In 2017 there were two songs that had more than two million song downloads, in 2016 there were five, and 16 in 2015. In 2018 there was not a single song that broke one million sales. In 2017, there were only 14 songs that 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%).
• For the second straight year, DRAKE took the three largest awards, Artist of the Year, Album of the Year, Scorpion, and Song of the Year, God’s Plan.

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