Photo credit: Tony Norkus/ ShuterstockMorgan Wallen's 'One Thing at a Time' topped the Year End US ‘Top Albums’ chart (Album + TEA + On-Demand SEA) with 5.362 million Total Album Consumption units in the United States and 6.357 billion on-demand audio streams.
Global on-demand audio streams reached the 4 trillion mark for the first time ever in a single year in 2023.
That’s according to market monitor Luminate (formerly MRC Data / Nielsen Music), which published its Year-End report for 2023 on Wednesday (January 10). You can download it here.
On-demand audio song streams globally rose22.3% to 4.1 trillion in 2023 (compared to 3.4 trillion in 2022) according to Luminate’s new report.
Luminate also reports that globally, total on-demand song streams (Audio + Video) grew 33.7% in 2023 to reach 7.1 trillion in total, compared to 5.3 trillion on-demand song streams in 2022 (see below).
In the US, on-demand song streams (Audio + Video) grew 14.6% in 2023, driven by superstars like Taylor Swift, SZA and Morgan Wallen.
That 14.6% growth translated to 1.5 trillion on-demand (Audio + Video) song streams in the US last year.
Meanwhile, in the United States, on-demand audio streams grew 12.7% to reach 1.2 trillion.
Total Album Consumption (TAC) of all music in the United States rose 12.6% to 1.1 billion album-sale-equivalent units in 2023 (see below).
Luminate’s ‘Total Album Consumption’ (TAC) metric combines all on-demand track streams, plus all track downloads, plus all album sales on digital and physical formats.
The formula for ‘TAC’ equates 1,250 premium streams, or 3,750 ad-supported streams, to one album ‘sale’.
It also equates 10 digital track purchases/downloads to one album ‘sale’.
Of those 1.1 billion album-sale-equivalent (TAC) units in the US in 2023, 796.8 million, or 72.6%, were registered by ‘Catalog music’.
This means that ‘Current’ Music’s share of Total Album Consumption in the United States in 2023 was 27.4%, or 300.4 million TAC units.
While the popularity of ‘Current’ music rose 10.9% in the US in 2023, the popularity of ‘Catalog’ music grew 13.2%, according to Luminate’s report (see below).
Luminate defines ‘Current’ as anything released in the 18 months prior to it getting streamed/downloaded/purchased.
Anything older than 18 months when it’s streamed/downloaded/purchased is defined as ‘Catalog’.
Speaking on the release of the report, Luminate CEO Rob Jonas said: “As the trend of global streaming expands, evidenced by a +34% surge in 2023 according to our data, Luminate is committed to enhancing the international scope of the data and insights we provide.”
Photo Credit: Maarten de Boer
“As the trend of global streaming expands, evidenced by a +34% surge in 2023 according to our data, Luminate is committed to enhancing the international scope of the data and insights we provide.”
Rob Jonas, Luminate
Added Jonas: “We’re pleased to present this report, fueled predominantly by our new country-level streaming data and amplified by insights from our audience research.
“We aim to capture the trends that defined the music industry over the past year across 50 diverse markets. It also reflects the innovative strategies our team applied in managing data in 2023, including new partnerships with companies such as Deezer, Melon, Flo and Anghami. We look forward to continuing that collaborative approach in 2024.”
Morgan Wallen’s One Thing at a Time topped the Year End US ‘Top Albums’ chart (Album + TEA + On-Demand SEA) with 5.362 million Total Album Consumption units in the United States and 6.357 billion on-demand audio streams.
At No.2, with 3.209 million TAC units registered across 2023, was Taylor Swift’s Midnights. The album generated 2.859 billion on-demand audio streams, and 973,000 album sales, according to Luminate (see below).
SZA’s SOS, meanwhile, in third place, generated 3.172 million Total Album Consumption units, 3.893 billion on-demand audio streams, and 199,000 album sales in 2023.
