Recorded music revenue grew again in 2022, subscriptions led

The signal

IFPI, the industry body representing the recorded-music side of the publishing and music sector, reported on 21 March 2023 that global recorded music revenue grew 9.0% in 2022 to US$26.2 billion in trade revenues. Subscription audio streaming revenue rose 10.3% to US$12.7 billion, with 589 million paid subscription accounts worldwide by the end of 2022. Combined streaming, paid and ad-supported together, grew 11.5% to US$17.5 billion, or 67.0% of total global recorded music revenue.

The evidence

The report measures trade revenue, the amount labels and rights holders receive, not what consumers spend at retail or on subscription list prices, a distinction that matters because it isolates the industry's own income rather than the wider market around it. Growth was not confined to streaming: the report also records physical formats growing 4.0%, performance rights up 8.6% and recovering to pre-pandemic levels, and synchronisation licensing, music placed in film, television and advertising, up 22.3%, showing growth spread across several revenue lines rather than resting on one. IFPI's own publications page confirms the Global Music Report is issued in two forms, a free State of the Industry summary and a fuller premium edition with market-by-market data, meaning the headline figures cited here come from the public summary while a more granular breakdown sits behind IFPI's subscriber access. The report does not itself state how many consecutive years global revenue has grown, so that framing is not repeated here.

Timeframe and confidence

The figures cover calendar year 2022 and were published as a dated report on 21 March 2023 by the trade body whose members supply the underlying data. This is editorial reading: an industry association reporting its own sector's revenue is a primary source for what member companies disclosed to it, but it is not an independently audited market count, and its methodology for aggregating members' figures is not detailed in the public summary.

What would change the reading

The premium edition's market-by-market data, or a subsequent year's report showing subscription growth slowing or reversing, would test whether 2022's pattern, subscriptions carrying the market with physical and licensing formats also contributing, continued or changed.

• Did paid subscription growth continue at a similar rate in the following year's report?
• How much of physical format growth reflects vinyl's niche resurgence rather than broad-based demand?
• Does trade revenue growth translate into comparable growth in payments to individual artists and songwriters?

An industry body's own revenue report is a legitimate primary source for the sector's declared income, but its summary format leaves the underlying market-level detail, and any claim about how many years the trend has run, outside what this document itself states.

Source trail

1. IFPI Global Music Report: Global Recorded Music Revenues Grew 9% in 2022www.ifpi.org · Source publication: 2023-03-21 · Retrieved 2026-09-16

   States 2022 global recorded music revenue, subscription streaming revenue and paid-subscriber counts, and streaming's share of total revenue.

2. IFPI Resourceswww.ifpi.org · Source publication: not established · Retrieved 2026-09-16

   Confirms IFPI publishes the Global Music Report in both a free State of the Industry edition and a fuller premium edition with market-level data.

Read across the evidence

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Platforms & distribution · All 100 historical records