(Hypebot) — A record 209 million internet users aged 13 or older now stream music, according to MusicWatch’s new 2020 Annual Music Study.
These stats include services such as Pandora, Spotify, and Apple Music as well as watching or listening to music videos on YouTube. Just 10 years ago, there were 99 million streamers, mostly on Pandora and YouTube.
More key takeaways from the MusicWatch 2020 Annual Music Study
- Music subscribers hit a record 84M. This is subscribers not subscriptions, and some consumers have more than one paid sub, this figure excludes SiriusXM and Prime subs who use Amazon Music, for example. Adding those in and the subscriber number jumps to 123M or more than 50% internet population 13 and older.
- Piracy, or Badquisition as MusicWatch clas it, was level this year. While legacy P2P/Torrent sharing is at the lowest levels ever, 16.4M stream ripped a music file.
- Listening to CDs has fallen by 50% in the past five years. Purchases of CDs and DDLs fell under 10% this year, and the remaining buyers continue to get older.
- Vinyl had another big year, surpassing CD sales for the first time in generations.
