Global On-Demand Audio Streams Hit a Record 4.1 Trillion During 2023 — As 45.6 Million Tracks Received Zero Plays, Report Shows

Global on-demand music streams spiked more than 22 percent during 2023 to top four trillion, newly released data has revealed.

This record-high stream count, referring particularly to audio plays on dedicated music platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Tidal, emerged in an annual report from Luminate.

According to the resource, on-demand audio streams cracked 4.1 trillion last year (up from about 3.4 trillion in 2022), with video streams elevating the total to about 7.1 trillion (up 33.7 percent year over year).

Behind the audio-only sum, the analysis points to 1.2 trillion on-demand streams attributable to stateside listeners, a year-over-year (YoY) boost of close to 13 percent.

By individual track, Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night” and the 1.02 billion stateside streams it reportedly racked up during 2023 topped the competition, including second-ranked “Kill Bill” by SZA (803 million streams).

Total U.S. on-demand song streams, across audio as well as video, rose 14.6 percent YoY to hit 1.45 trillion, the data indicates. (India followed with 1.04 trillion streams, as Brazil took the third spot with 373.5 billion, Mexico claimed the fourth position with 366.5 billion, and Indonesia rounded out the top five with 235.5 billion.)

Meanwhile, domestic digital album sales are said to have slipped to 18.3 million units, down 9.3 percent YoY, as physical album sales from vinyl, CDs, and cassettes alike improved by 8.9 percent to 87 million or so units, per the breakdown. Unsurprisingly, Taylor Swift laid claim to each of the five uppermost spots on the list of 2023’s bestselling vinyl albums in the U.S.

Also regarding the States, catalog releases – referring mainly to projects that debuted over 18 months ago – reportedly accounted for 72.6 percent of consumption during 2023.

Though the latter figure grew just 0.4 percent YoY (with the remaining 27.4 percent of consumption having reached current releases), catalog’s share of total U.S. album consumption hiked 13.2 percent YoY to 796.8 million units, the text relays. (To fit into the catalog category, works must lack “a single from the album that is current on any of Billboard’s radio airplay charts.”)

Shifting to other noteworthy takeaways from the almost 80-page study, within the quick-expanding Latin genre, regional Mexican music’s U.S. on-demand audio streams reportedly surged 60 percent YoY to 21.9 billion during 2023.

Closer to its conclusion, the report specifies that 436,000 tracks generated over one million global streams apiece during 2023, up from 373,500 during 2022, as 45.6 million tracks received no plays at all. Of course, these figures have come to light as platforms including Spotify continue to expand their userbases and revamp their payout approaches.

Building upon the point, Luminate tracked an average of 103,500 new ISRCs on DSPs daily during 2023, up 10.8 percent YoY.