Global recorded music hit $31.7 billion, IFPI says, for 2025

The system

Every March, the recording industry gets its own scorecard, prepared by the trade body that represents it rather than an independent auditor. IFPI, which describes itself as representing the recording industry worldwide, released its Global Music Report 2026 on 18 March 2026, its annual accounting of global recorded-music trade revenue drawn from data its member record companies supply directly.

What the documents establish

IFPI's own release states that global recorded-music revenues grew 6.4% to reach US$31.7 billion in calendar year 2025, an eleventh consecutive year of growth by IFPI's count. Paid subscription streaming grew 8.8% and accounted for 52.4% of global revenues, with 837 million paid streaming subscription accounts; total streaming revenue surpassed $22 billion, or 69.6% of the total. Physical formats grew 8.0%, with vinyl up 13.7% for a nineteenth consecutive year of growth, and performance rights revenue reached $2.9 billion. Every region grew, led by Latin America at 17.1%. On AI, the release states that 'record companies are at the forefront of the next generation of AI innovation' through licensing partnerships, without citing a specific revenue figure attributable to AI, and separately flags streaming fraud, describing it as artificially generated plays diverting revenue from artists. IFPI's Resources page, reflecting the site as retrieved on 16 September 2026, describes the Global Music Report's Premium Edition as containing granular data for over 50 markets, the source of the regional breakdowns above.

Craft and rights

For anyone citing the size of the music industry, the practical point is that IFPI's $31.7 billion figure measures recorded-music trade revenue as IFPI's member labels report it, in IFPI's own units and period, and should not be quoted interchangeably with a different provider's consumer-spend or retail-value estimate, such as a data firm's or a bank's own modelled forecast, without noting the difference in method. IFPI's framing of AI as something record companies are harnessing through licensing, rather than a threat requiring separate accounting, is IFPI's own editorial framing as an industry body representing labels, not a neutral third-party assessment.

Outcomes and open questions

IFPI does not publish, in this release, a breakdown of what share of the $31.7 billion, if any, involves AI-assisted or AI-generated recordings, nor a quantified cost from the streaming fraud it names as a growing threat. Both remain open questions for future editions to address or leave unaddressed.

• Are you comparing IFPI's recorded-music trade-revenue figure against a like-for-like measurement from another source?
• What would a labeled AI-revenue line in next year's report change about how you read industry growth claims?
• How would you verify streaming fraud's actual cost given IFPI names the problem without a number?

An eleventh straight year of growth is IFPI's own headline, built on its own members' data, and reading it usefully means keeping that provenance attached every time the number travels.