Is all music heading for the cloud?
David Bowie once said, ”Music itself is going to become like running water or electricity.” The latest data from the Recording Industry Association of America suggests that day will soon be upon us.
For the first time, streaming music has outsold physical product in the U.S. In the first half of this year, the music revenues of companies like Spotify, Pandora and YouTube jumped 23% to more than $1 billion.
Streaming now accounts for 32% of all sales, digital as a whole makes up 76% of the market.
Given that music sales numbers don’t include newer streaming services like Apple Music, it looks like streaming will surpass the value of downloads by next year.
Author: Donald Armbrecht is a freelance writer and social media producer.
Image: A customer listens to a music CD in a FNAC department store in Nice, France, February 27, 2009. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard
Don't miss any update on this topic
Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.
License and Republishing
World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Stay up to date:
The Digital Economy
Forum Stories newsletter
Bringing you weekly curated insights and analysis on the global issues that matter.
More on Industries in DepthSee all
David Elliott and Johnny Wood
April 25, 2025
