The US Latin music market grew 35% in 2021 continuing a 6-year trend of double-digit growth according to the RIAA, the American recorded music industry association. Although $886 million marks an all time high, 2021 revenues adjusted for inflation remain 15% below the value of Latin’s strongest year in 2005. Latin’s share of US music revenues grew to 5.9% up from 5.4% in 2020.
Revenues from streaming formats grew by 36% to an all-time high of $857 million in 2021, and made up 97% of Latin music revenues. Paid music subscriptions continued to be the biggest driver of Latin music revenue growth. Revenues from paid subscriptions grew 35% to $593 million, accounting for more than 2/3 of all US Latin music revenues in 2021. The number of paid subscriptions reached a record average of 84 million in 2021 (though that figure is not specific to Latin music).
Ad-supported on-demand streams (from services like YouTube, Vevo, and the free version of Spotify) grew 46% compared to the prior year, to $187 million. This marks a return to stronger growth for this category that was significantly impacted in 2020 by broader advertising declines due to COVID-19. Compared with overall US music revenues, this ad-supported category has a significantly greater share at 21% of total Latin music revenues compared to the general music market at 12% overall.
Growth also recovered for revenues from digital and customized radio services (such as Pandora, SiriusXM, and internet radio services) which grew 22% to $77 million in 2021, after a slight decline in 2020.
Although they only make up less than a percent of Latin music revenues, physical formats rebounded in 2021, after significant challenges to physical sales posed by COVID-19 related shutdowns in 2020. Physical format revenues rose 71% to $7.7 million, driven by increases in both Vinyl LPs (up 76% to $5.8 million) and CDs (up 44% to $2.0 million).
Revenues from permanent downloads of Latin music only accounted for 1.5% of revenues and fell 5% versus the prior year to $14 million.
The full report can be downloaded in English here and in Spanish here.
