Profits generated by Spanish artists on Spotify exceed $133m by 2023

In recent weeks, Spotify has been gradually releasing country-level data as part of its annual Loud & Clear economic report, a move it says makes it “the only streaming provider to share artist earnings data.”

To be clear, that data is only aggregate (Spotify won’t tell you how much Bad Bunny earned in the UK last year, for example), and the data it provides isn’t always the same – it provides one set of metrics. country, and one set of metrics in another. Sometimes these metrics overlap, allowing for country-by-country comparisons, and sometimes they don’t.

However, Loud & Clear’s data gives us an insight into the dynamics of the digital music markets that we do not know through the analysis of the private data of the streaming services that we have not had before.

In its latest release – and apparently its last release at national level for the year – Spotify revealed the numbers on music streaming in Spain.

One number stands out: In 2023, the income earned by Spanish artists on Spotify will jump. 123 million euros ($133 million at the average exchange rate of 2023). That is almost four times the profits generated by Spanish artists in 2017.

One thing to note about these numbers is that they are royalties performed on Spotifyand given that Spotify has rapidly grown its subscriber base over the years, the huge increase in earnings for Spanish musicians is at least as much an indication of Spotify’s growth as it is of the Spanish music market.

Nevertheless, Spain saw strong growth in its music industry in 2023, with profits rising 15% YES according to data from a Spanish industry group PROMUSICAE. Spotify’s profits from Spanish artists increased 24% at the same time.

This also compares favorably with the European Union as a whole, which has seen Spotify royalties grow 16% YES in 2023, according to a previous report by Loud & Clear.

However, Spain counted approx 8.2% of €1.5 billion ($1.62 billion) in the income earned by EU artists on the platform in 2023 – a gradual performance, as Spain has approx. 10.9% EU population.

Also noteworthy: It was close 1,300 Spanish artists produced the least €10,000 with royalties on Spotify by 2023, more than triple the number in 2017. Despite this rapid growth, Spain came to an end 8.7% of the approximately 15,000 Artists in the European Union generated an income of more than 10,000 euros in 2023, again underperforming compared to their size.

Spotify also reported that more than that 50% of the money earned by Spanish artists came from outside Spain. Compare this with Canada, where 92% of the money earned by local musicians came from outside the country.

This suggests that Spain is not as good at exporting its music as other similar countries – perhaps surprising, given the popularity of Latin music these days, which is in the Spanish language.

But that could change. In 2013, Spanish musicians were found more 3.1 billion times by Spotify listeners. In this metric, Spain has performed the most, it counts 11.1% of all EU music received by Spotify listeners in 2023.

(Spain’s success in this metric may be related to other local music trends in EU countries indeed of the area. Polish rap may be big in Poland, but it doesn’t have much of an audience outside the country.)

According to Spotify, reguetón and flamenco pop are among the most popular music genres that Spain exports, although rap, trap and melodic pop also play an important role.

Finally, others 60% of awards came from indie artists or labels (vs 65% in France).

You can check Spotify’s country level data for the UK, Germany, Italy, Denmark and Sweden here.

Spotify data for Brazil, Canada, France and the European Union can be found here.

Music Business Worldwide