US music subscriptions cross 100 million as digital downloads drop

Business is still booming for music streaming services, which crossed the 100 million US subscriber mark in 2024, according to the Record Industry Association of America’s (RIAA) latest revenue report. Overall sales were also bolstered by physical media, which is growing at a slightly faster rate than digital, thanks in large part to continually increasing vinyl sales.

“Paid subscriptions, ad-supported services, digital and customized radio, social media platforms, digital fitness apps and others grew 4% to a record high $14.9 billion in revenue,” writes the RIAA. That’s about half a billion dollars more than the previous year’s take.

A lot of the growth in streaming services comes from Spotify, which recently announced it had finally turned a profit for a full year in 2024. That year, the company continued to increase prices and grew its Premium subscriber base to 263 million worldwide. Spotify didn’t say how many of its subscribers were in the US.

Meanwhile, vinyl, which experienced a 7 percent growth and has now outsold CDs for the third consecutive year, pulled in $1.4 billion of an overall $2 billion spent on physical media. CD revenue was up by a percent, earning $541 million for the year. Digital downloads were down by 14.9 percent versus last year and make up just two percent of the overall take.