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Goldman Sachs has published the latest edition of its influential Music in the Air report.

The 91-page research paper, released today (June 3), provides insights into streaming growth, price strategies, emerging markets, and the impact of artificial intelligence on the music business.

Despite revising some forecasts downward following a slower-than-expected 2024, Goldman Sachs maintains a positive long-term outlook for the music industry.

The bank expects the global music market (across recorded music, publishing, and live) to nearly double from USD $104.9 billion in 2024 to $196.8 billion by 2035.

According to the report, authored by a team of Goldman Sachs analysts led by Lisa Yang, alongside Eric Sheridan and Stephen Laszczyk, among others, the industry will benefit from several key growth drivers, including emerging market expansion, subscription pricing improvements, and new revenue streams from superfan monetization.

The report identifies significant opportunities ahead, noting that “the music market should remain resilient in an uncertain macro backdrop”.

Here are seven key takeaways from Goldman Sachs’ analysis…

1. GLOBAL STREAMING SUBSCRIBERS EXPECTED TO REACH 827 MILLION IN 2025

Goldman Sachs forecasts that global paid music streaming subscribers will grow to 827 million in 2025, representing 10% YoY growth from 752 million in 2024.

This would represent an addition of approximately 75 million net new subscribers in 2025, though the growth rate of 10% represents a slight deceleration from 2024’s 10.6% growth, and remains well below the 12.8% growth seen in 2023.

“There were 72 million new subscribers in 2024, compared with 77 million/94 million in 2023/22, representing the slowest pace of net additions since 2017,” the report states.

Emerging markets will continue to drive the majority of this growth, where “penetration remains at only 8% of the internet population” compared to 38% in developed markets.

2. RECORDED MUSIC GROWTH SIGNIFICANTLY UNDERPERFORMED IN 2024, FORECASTS REVISED DOWNWARD. Global revenues tipped to hit $31.4bn in 2025.

Recorded music growth severely missed expectations in 2024, growing only 4.8% YoY (as reported by IFPI) compared to Goldman Sachs’ forecast of 8.9% – a shortfall of over 4 percentage points.

“2024 global recorded music growth came 4ppt below our expectations,” the report states, marking the first year since Goldman Sachs began forecasting music industry trends where recorded music fell well short of projections.

“Goldman now expects 5.8% growth in 2025 (down from 8.8% previously) and 6.6% in 2026 (down from 8.4%).”

Goldman Sachs has consequently lowered its recorded music growth forecasts, now expecting 5.8% growth in 2025 (down from 8.8% previously) and 6.6% in 2026 (down from 8.4%).

Goldman projects the recorded music market to grow from $29.6 billion in 2024 to $31.4 billion in 2025, $33.6 billion in 2026, $43.4 billion in 2030, and $55.0 billion in 2035 (see below).

3. SUPERFAN MONETIZATION COULD GENERATE $4.3 BILLION IN ADDITIONAL REVENUE

Goldman Sachs identifies superfan monetization as a significant opportunity for the music industry, estimating a potential annual revenue uplift of $4.3 billion based on 2026 projections.

The analysis assumes that 20% of paid streaming subscribers can be defined as superfans and that these users would spend twice as much as average subscribers, based on Luminate‘s finding that 20% of US music listeners are considered superfans.

“Goldman estimates a potential annual revenue uplift of $4.3 billion based on 2026 projections.”

“According to Luminate, super fans in the US spend 66% more on live music than the average music listener, and 2x as much on physical purchases,” the report notes.

Goldman points to Tencent Music’s Super VIP tier as an example of a successful superfan tier, which “costs c.2.5x as much as the premium subscription” and has seen strong adoption, with penetration reaching 12% of TME’s subscriber base in Q1 2025.

4. MUSIC STREAMING PRICES WILL CONTINUE RISING WITH REGULAR INCREASES EXPECTED

Goldman Sachs expects music streaming services to implement regular pricing increases, with second rounds of price hikes typically occurring 12-18 months after initial increases.

“Through 2023, all major streaming platforms have implemented their first-ever comprehensive price increases across standard and family plans. These appeared to have had little or no impact on subscriber growth and churn rates,” the report states.

The investment bank believes music streaming remains attractively priced compared to other entertainment services, noting that “Spotify‘s and Apple Music‘s standard subscriptions are still 39% cheaper than Netflix in the US” and “in the US, the average spend per paid music streaming account is around $14 per month.

This compares to an average spend per month of $69 for SVOD users, with the average consumer having 4 SVOD services.”

5. EMERGING MARKETS WILL DRIVE 75% OF SUBSCRIBER GROWTH BY 2035

Goldman forecasts that emerging markets will become the dominant driver of music streaming growth, accounting for 75% of net subscriber additions by 2035, up from 57% in 2024.

“Emerging markets have become the major driver of subscription growth, accounting for over half of new subscribers since 2021 (on our estimates), including nearly 60% in 2024, although penetration remains at only 8% of the internet population,” the report states.

However, emerging markets will continue to contribute a smaller share of streaming revenue due to lower average revenue per user (ARPU) each year.

Goldman calculates – based on IFPI figures – that annual ’emerging market’ ARPU sat at around USD $8 in 2024, compared to USD $31 in ‘developed’ markets.

(These numbers will be impacted by telco deals, multi-user subscription bundles etc.)

The analysis highlights China as a key market, where “Tencent Music’s paying ratio has increased significantly since 2018” from 4.2% to 21.5% in 2024, and India with an estimated “20 million paid users across all streaming services out of a total MAU of [circa] 200 million users in 2023.”

6. AI’s IMPACT ON MUSIC UPLOADS and the industry’s revenue pool APPEARS LIMITED SO FAR

Despite concerns about artificial intelligence flooding streaming platforms with generated content, Goldman Sachs’ report notes that “the total number of tracks uploaded daily decreased YoY for the first time in 2024 (citing Luminate data) in spite of the rising availability of AI-powered music apps to generate songs.”

The bank’s analysis suggests AI’s impact on the music industry revenue pool remains minimal, with industry checks suggesting “AI music accounts for 0.1% of the royalty pool.”

“Ongoing concerted efforts among the large music players are necessary to further evolve royalty payment structures and protect music copyrights.”

Some platforms are seeing significant AI content, however. “Deezer disclosed in April 2025 that [over] 20,000 AI-generated tracks were uploaded to its platform daily (representing 18% of all tracks), double the 10k disclosed in January 2025,” while “Sony Music disclosed that it has taken down [over] 75,000 AI deepfakes based on its artists, heavily skewed towards its most popular artists.”

Goldman emphasizes that “ongoing concerted efforts among the large music players are necessary to further evolve royalty payment structures and protect music copyrights.”

7.Goldman Sachs expects the global value of Live music to accelerate

Goldman Sachs expects live music to be a key growth driver, forecasting 10.0% growth in 2025 following 4.4% growth in 2024.

The bank has raised its long-term outlook for the sector, now expecting a 7.2% compound annual growth rate between 2024-2030, up from 6.7% previously.

Live music revenues are projected to grow from $34.6 billion in 2024 to $38.2 billion in 2025, $52.6 billion in 2030, and $67.1 billion in 2035.

“The Live Music industry should benefit from an increasing supply of diverse & popular artists touring over the next decade” driven by “stronger financial incentives to tour as tours make up a higher percentage of artist income,” the report states.

Goldman Sachs highlights demographic trends as particularly supportive, noting that “the rise of Millennials & Gen Z fans” who “place the highest relative importance on live experiences vs prior generations” will drive growth as these cohorts see their “income, wealth and spending power as a group grow rapidly over the next several years.”

The bank also notes strong pricing power, with “average ticket prices” rising 40% for stadiums and 37% for clubs between 2019-2024, while emphasizing that live music has “proven to be more recession resilient than other forms of entertainment.”

Reservoir (Nasdaq: RSVR) is a publicly traded, global independent music company with operations across music publishing, recorded music, and artist management.

Music Business Worldwide