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It’s official: Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers” towered over all others in 2023, completing the year as the biggest-selling single on the planet, the IFPI reports.
Cyrus is presented with the IFPI Global Single Award, which each year recognizes the artist with the top-selling single across all digital formats – including paid subscription streaming, ad-supported platforms, and single-track downloads.
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The trade body today (Feb. 26) counts down the top 10 singles for 2023, with Cyrus marking her first appearance on the list.
The success of “Flowers” was a truly global one, as the single simultaneously locked up No. 1 spots in 29 markets around the world, and finished at No. 1 on the year-end charts for the U.K., France and Australia.
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In the U.S., “Flowers” showed serious staying power with an eight-week run at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Those commercial muscles were rewarded at the 2024 Grammy Awards, where Miley performed the song and “Flowers” won for best pop solo performance and record of the year – her very first Grammys.
Cyrus can make it a week to remember at the 2024 BRIT Awards, set for Sunday, March 3 at The O2 in London, where she’s shortlisted for international artist of the year and “Flowers” is up for international song.
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Presenting the latest award on behalf of the trade body, Lewis Morrison, director of global charts and certifications at IFPI, remarks, “Topping the charts in so many countries simultaneously, the song – along with its message of empowerment -resonated across the world and is the definition of a truly global hit. Congratulations to Miley and her team for this incredible achievement.”
Meanwhile, the reigning, four-time IFPI Global Recording Artist of the Year Taylor Swift is the only artist to double up in the IFPI top 10, doing so with “Cruel Summer” at No. 7 and “Anti-Hero” at No. 9.
There are first-time appearances for artists from Nigeria (Rema’s “Calm Down” with Selena Gomez at No. 2) and Mexico (Yng Lvcas and Peso Pluma’s “La Bebe” at No. 6), reflecting the border-crossing phenomenon of Afrobeats and Regional Mexican music.
All told, artists representing 10 nationalities (Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Nigeria, South Korea, U.K., and U.S.) impact the top 20, up from six nationalities in 2022.
“It is also fantastic to see so many nationalities and genres represented in the IFPI Global Single Chart,” remarks Morrison. “It is a wonderful reflection of the wide range of extraordinary artists that – working in partnership with their record labels – are finding international success.”
The IFPI’s charts capture streaming, downloads and physical formats in every country directly from the participating record labels, which is then converted using the trade body’s “unique” methodology to a single, global chart figure.
The previous winner of the IFPI’s Global Single Award was Harry Styles’ “As It Was.”
Top 20 IFPI Global Singles Chart 2023:
1Miley CyrusFlowers2.702Rema, Selena GomezCalm Down1.893SZAKill Bill1.844The Weeknd, Ariana GrandeDie For You1.785Harry StylesAs It Was1.466Yng Lvcas, Peso PlumaLa Bebe1.457Taylor SwiftCruel Summer1.398Morgan WallenLast Night1.379Taylor SwiftAnti-Hero1.3110Jung KookSeven (feat. Latto)1.2411David Guetta, Bebe RexhaI’m Good (Blue)1.2312Metro Boomin, The Weeknd, 21 SavageCreepin’1.2013The WeekndSave Your Tears1.1914Stephen SanchezUntil I Found You1.1815Karol G, ShakiraTQG1.1816Sam Smith, Kim PetrasUnholy1.1717SZASnooze1.0618Tom OdellAnother Love1.0119YOASOBIIdol1.0120The WeekndStarboy1.00
When Frances Moore started in the Brussels office of The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) in 1994 as regional director for Europe, the trade organization represented six major labels that made most of their money selling CDs – and mostly in Europe and the U.S. When she retires at the end of this year, she will leave a business with three majors that’s truly global and focused on streaming. In between, Moore scored some of the key policy wins that made that happen, especially since ascending to the top job in 2010. She also transformed IFPI into a global force and served longer as CEO than any of her predecessors.
Moore started just as the major labels and other media companies began pushing for laws to protect digital content – an effort that ultimately resulted in the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the U.S., and the 2001 Copyright and Information Society Directive in the European Union. One of her major achievements was IFPI’s passage of the 2019 copyright directive that addressed some of its shortcomings by tightening up some of the safe harbor rules that created a “value gap” between what rightsholders made from licensed services like Spotify and what they got from user-upload-fueled services like YouTube. In between, she led IFPI efforts to extend the term of copyright protection for recordings in Europe and establish a public performance right for recordings in China, plus strengthened IFPI’s operations in markets that barely existed when she started at the organization three decades ago.
You announced in July that you would retire at the end of the year, but some executives can’t quite picture that – you have a reputation for working extremely hard. What are your plans?
I can’t really picture me retiring, either! Come the first of January, I’ll tell you the answer. I’ll take a rest at the beginning and see what happens afterwards.
You’re leaving an organization that’s much more international than the one you joined in 1994.
When I joined, the two big markets were Europe and the U.S., and the bulk of the industry’s revenues came from those two places – the other territories were much smaller. But IFPI was always an international organization: There was already an office in Hong Kong and two small offices in China, so it was more a question of how you brought everyone together.
You started in Brussels and played a major role in building up the organization there.
There was a Brussels representation [when I started] but they didn’t really have U.S. [style] lobbying and that’s what I brought to build a campaign for the [2001] copyright directive. Back in the ‘90s, Europe had a lot to learn about lobbying. I remember suggesting to one of the major national groups that they bring in a lobbyist and they were shocked. It was as if I had suggested bringing in a lady of the night. Lobbying wasn’t seen then as a clean profession.
You started at IFPI right before the first copyright directive and one of your big accomplishments as CEO was to get the 2019 copyright directive passed. That was supposed to address some of the issues with the first one, but the implementation of it in different EU countries has varied. How do you see that?
For the first copyright directive, we built something at the European level that we never had before – we had 32 organizations working together from books, film, music, you name it. In implementing the WIPO treaty, we had a good, strong directive that let companies go online with confidence. When it came to the second one, the issue was what we called ‘the value gap’ [the difference between what it cost companies to license content and how little some of them were paying to use it]. Companies were doing deals with one hand tied behind their back. That was a hard campaign to fight, not because of the arguments – people could see that – but because we had huge opponents. Now some of these companies we work with and they’re a part of the success of the music industry. But as far as EU Parliament, they said this was the hardest-fought campaign they ever had to deal with. Luckily, they came through in the end.
In theory, you got what you needed. But the directive was implemented quite poorly in some countries, especially Germany.
There are 27 countries and there’s one that hasn’t implemented it yet – Poland. But Donald Tusk [who became Polish Prime Minister on December 13], will make sure it’s implemented. In most countries, it has been done faithfully. In Germany and in Belgium, we had problems and we’re taking it to court. But it was a signal more than anything else. To some degree, once it was adopted, the tech companies realized that they had to do what it was asking for.
What do you consider your biggest accomplishment?
I think my biggest accomplishment was putting together an A-level team. I don’t like the cult of personality – everything we do, we do as a team.
Your job is like herding cats – there are the national recording business organizations and the major labels – now small, medium, and large. It’s a very tough act to follow.
The job isn’t to be an expert in legal policy – the job is to hold the ball tight and keep running forward. There’s a global search [for a successor] and I think we’ll be able to announce the person shortly, and I wish that person all the best. The most important thing is that the companies speak with one voice – then everything else becomes easier.
Frances Moore and Taylor Swift
Dave J Hogan/Getty Images
You’ve had support on policy issues over the years from some very famous artists. Did you ever get starstruck?
I’m a Scottish rationalist – I don’t do starstruck. We have this program, Friends of Music, when artists come to the Parliament and they perform, and it moves you. I remember Jamie Cullum was performing in Strausberg [Germany] and at one point he stopped playing on the keys of his piano and just strummed on the wood. It was pure music. I don’t get starstruck but I get impressed beyond belief with talent.
You are leaving an organization that’s much more diverse than the one you joined in 1994. For example, you have women regional directors in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and Latin America. Was that a priority for you?
That was the state of the world [in 1994] – it wasn’t just the recording industry. In my case, there was never a point of saying I’m going to recruit a woman – you can only put together an A-level team if you choose the best candidates. We have six regional teams, and three are led by men and three are led by women. That’s balanced but not deliberately balanced – it just worked out that way.
What’s going to be the most important priority for your successor?
AI, because if you don’t get it right, it could decimate the industry. That’s the big one. There are some technology companies saying that there are text and data mining exceptions and we fit in there, so we don’t have to respect copyright. Wrong.
More people around the globe are listening to licensed music services than ever before — and are doing so via a growing number of different platforms — but piracy continues to divert cash from creators’ pockets, while a majority of music fans think that artificial intelligence (AI) should not be used to clone music artists’ voices without authorization, according to a new consumer survey from international recorded-music trade organization IFPI.
IFPI’s “Engaging with Music 2023″ study reveals that music consumers are spending on average 20.7 hours listening to music weekly, up from 20.1 hours in 2022 – or the equivalent of an extra 13 three-minute songs per week.
The London-based organization found that 73% of the 43,000-plus music fans it surveyed listen to their favorite artists through subscription or ad-supported audio streaming service such as Spotify, Apple Music or Amazon Music, down slightly from last year’s figure of 74% (IFPI says that the small decrease is down to a change in accounting methodology, rather than a drop in real terms). The proportion of paying subscribers rises from 46% in 2022 to 48% this year.
Audio subscription services are the most used format, accounting for around a third (32%) of music fans’ weekly listening time, closely followed by video streaming via platforms like YouTube or TikTok, which make up 31% of consumption.
On average, people now use more than seven different methods to engage with music, reports IFPI, with other popular formats including radio listening (17%), purchased music (9%) and attending live concerts (4%).
In line with previous years, the adoption of subscription streaming services is highest among younger listeners, with 60% of 16–24-year-olds and 62% of 25-34-year-olds surveyed saying they use subscription music platforms. Usage drops to 28% in the 55-64-year-old age bracket, although consumption is up year-on-year across all age demographics.
Among 16-24-year-olds, short form video platforms such as TikTok are listed as the most popular way that they engage with music on a daily basis, followed by audio subscription streaming services and then video streaming formats like YouTube.
The top five countries where people spent the most time listening to music through a subscription streaming service were Sweden (61% of people surveyed), Mexico (57%), Germany (55%), the U.S. (53%) and New Zealand (52%), with the United Kingdom dropping out of the top five.
Overall, IFPI reports a 7% year-on-year rise in time spent listening to music on paid streaming services – a slower rate of growth than the 10% rise in listening time in 2022.
Artificial Intelligence and the Persistent Piracy Problem
For the first time, IFPI’s research team asked music fans for their views on how they think artificial intelligence will impact on the industry. Nearly eight in ten (79%) said that human creativity is essential to the creation of music and 74% of respondents said that AI should not be used to clone or impersonate music artists without authorization.
The vast majority of people surveyed supported the need for AI systems and developers to be transparent and clearly identify any training data they have used to create new music works, which is one of the key provisions of the recently agreed EU AI Act.
The IFPI report was compiled by surveying internet users aged 16-64 between August and October across 26 countries, including the United States, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, France, China, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia.
Collectively, these markets accounted for more than 91% of global recorded music revenues in 2022, according to this year’s IFPI Global Music Report. IFPI says the report is the largest music survey of its kind ever conducted.
In terms of genres, pop remains the most popular type of music globally, followed by rock, hip-hop/rap, dance/electronic and Latin. On average, music fans said that they listened to more than eight different genres of music with local-language genres such as K-pop in South Korea or Amapiano in South Africa increasingly popular in domestic markets.
Writing in the study’s foreword, IFPI chief executive Frances Moore says its findings demonstrate how the music industry has evolved to give “artists more opportunities than ever to find audiences,” who are in turn “discovering and engaging with more music in an increasing number of ways.”
Nevertheless, music piracy remains an ongoing issue that has “a severe and direct impact on royalties,” warns Moore. Of those surveyed, 29% of respondents said that use unlicensed or illegal methods to listen to or obtain music, down slightly from the previous year.
Stream-ripping sites remain the most popular way for consumers to access copyright-infringing music, IFPI found, with 41% of 16-24-year-olds confessing to using them. One in five people (20%) said they had used an unlicensed mobile app to illegally download music.
The listening study also contains separate reports looking at music consumption in China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Vietnam.
In China, which last year overtook France as the fifth-biggest music market worldwide with revenues of $1.2 billion, 96% of people surveyed said they now used licensed music streaming services with the total number of hours spent listening to music each week increasing to just under 30 hours among respondents.
Despite the rapid growth in streaming in China, 75% of people surveyed said that they still used unlicensed or illegal ways to access music, demonstrating that piracy remains a serious issue in the world’s most populous country.
Responding to the report’s findings, Moore said that tackling all forms of copyright infringement on a global basis would continue to be a priority for IFPI to “ensure the most secure digital environment possible for music creators and fans alike.”
Listeners remain wary of artificial intelligence, according to Engaging with Music 2023, a forthcoming report from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) that seems aimed in particular at government regulators.
The IFPI surveyed 43,000 people across 26 countries, coming to the conclusion that 76% of respondents “feel that an artist’s music or vocals should not be used or ingested by AI without permission,” and 74% believe “AI should not be used to clone or impersonate artists without authorisation.”
The results are not surprising. Most listeners probably weren’t thinking much, if at all, about AI and its potential impacts on music before 2023. (Some still aren’t thinking about it: 89% of those surveyed said they were “aware of AI,” leaving 11% who have somehow managed to avoid a massive amount of press coverage this year.) New technologies are often treated with caution outside the tech industry.
It’s also easy for survey respondents to support statements about getting authorization for something before doing it — that generally seems like the right thing to do. But historically, artists haven’t always been interested in preemptively obtaining permission.
Take the act of sampling another song to create a new composition. Many listeners would presumably agree that artists should go through the process of clearing a sample before using it. In reality, however, many artists sample first and clear later, sometimes only if they are forced to.
In a statement, Frances Moore, IFPI’s CEO, said that the organization’s survey serves as a “timely reminder for policymakers as they consider how to implement standards for responsible and safe AI.”
U.S. policymakers have been moving slowly to develop potential guidelines around AI. In October, a bipartisan group of senators released a draft of the NO FAKES Act, which aims to prevent the creation of “digital replicas” of an artist’s image, voice, or visual likeness without permission.
“Generative AI has opened doors to exciting new artistic possibilities, but it also presents unique challenges that make it easier than ever to use someone’s voice, image, or likeness without their consent,” Senator Chris Coons said in a statement. “Creators around the nation are calling on Congress to lay out clear policies regulating the use and impact of generative AI.”
Global recording industry trade body IFPI announced on Thursday that Frances Moore will step down as CEO at the end of the year, ending a consequential tenure that began in 2010. Moore has agreed to assist in the search for her successor at the organization, which represents more than 8,000 record company members worldwide, including all three major labels.
Moore joined IFPI in 1994 as regional director for Europe; her 13-year tenure as chief executive makes her its longest-serving leader ever and, according to IFPI, the longest-serving leader of a recorded music trade body.
Under Moore’s leadership, IFPI has guided the global industry through a throng of seismic changes, namely its transition to digital streaming, along with major initiatives to strengthen copyright protections and intellectual property rights and the ongoing fight against music piracy. Those initiatives helped lay the groundwork for the recorded music industry’s year-on-year recovery from the lows of just over a decade ago when piracy was rampant.
When Moore started at CEO in 2010, global music sales had fallen to $13.8 billion from a high of over $22 billion in 1999. Last year, recorded music sales had rebounded to $26.2 billion, a rise of 9% on the previous year and the eighth consecutive year of growth, according to the organization’s most recent “Global Music Report.”
Noteworthy achievements during her 13-year tenure include the hard-fought enactment of the EU Copyright Directive – a landmark piece of legislation, which made online platforms like YouTube liable for unlicensed content, effectively closing safe harbor protections in Europe, and which was passed in 2019 after extensive lobbying from IFPI.
Moore’s reign has also seen IFPI take a leading role in combating stream manipulation and copyright infringing websites around the world. Legal action taken or coordinated by IFPI in the digital era has led to around 5,200 infringing sites being blocked or shut down, says the London-based organization.
As the music industry has become more global, IFPI also created the IFPI Global Charts and in 2015, IFPI struck a blow to piracy by aligning the global release of new music to Fridays.
“After three decades with IFPI, thirteen of which as its Global CEO, it is time for me to hang up my spurs!” Moore,who trained as a barrister, said in a statement. “I have loved working for IFPI and the recording industry and feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity to serve in this role. I am very proud and appreciative of the IFPI team, both now and over the years. Every achievement has been the result of a team effort. ”
She continued, “I have had the good fortune of living through so much of the industry’s transformation from analogue to digital. On my first day at IFPI thirty years ago, I was dealing with legislation on blank tape levies and here we are today dealing with legislation on AI!”
Along with advocating and taking actions on behalf of it members, IFPI of course endures as the recorded music industry’s main resource for documenting the industry’s progress. It’s annual “Global Music Report” continues to be the standard, and under Moore IFPI launched the IFPI Global Charts, the industry’s official annual ranking for the best-selling artists.
In a written statement, the IFPI Main Board said, thanked Moore for “navigating IFPI through arguably the most demanding and complex period of modern music’s history. At once, she has led us through music’s digital transition and the industry’s expansion worldwide, enabling a return to growth that mutually benefits artists, labels and the broader music ecosystem. Not only has she herself been an excellent and effective advocate for labels and creators, but Frances has built an incredible team of professionals to assure that her legacy will carry on.”
LONDON — An eighth consecutive year of growth is undoubtedly great news for the music business — especially for anyone who worked in the industry during the near-decade of decline brought on by rampant piracy and falling CD sales. But this year’s IFPI “Global Music Report” also demonstrates a slowing rate of growth across all formats and in nearly all established markets.
Here are five takeaways from this year’s report:
Growth Slows Down
Total recorded music revenues climbed to $26.2 billion, up 9% in 2022, which, although impressive, is half of 2021’s growth, when revenues were up 18.5%. Paid-for streaming subscription revenue rose 10.3% to $12.7 billion in 2022, compared with a 21.9% year-on-year jump in 2021.
Total streaming (including paid subscription and advertising-supported) was up 11.5% to $17.5 billion, versus a rise of 24% the prior year.
Physical format revenue climbed 4%, compared to 16% in 2021, while music sales in the world’s three biggest markets — the United States, Japan and United Kingdom — all grew by around 5% last year, compared with double-digit gains for the U.S. and U.K. in 2021 (+22.6% and +13.2% respectively) and a rise of 9.3% in Japan.
IFPI attributed the slowing to 2021’s exceptional growth, which it said was partly fueled by a post-pandemic bounce back in music consumption, and execs at a London launch event Tuesday said they were confident the market was not about to plateau.
“I do think there are pockets of established markets where there is an opportunity to grow,” said Simon Robson, head of Warner Music Group’s international recorded music operations outside the U.S. and the U.K. He cited France as a major music market where streaming subscription penetration rates remain under 20%. “The challenge for today is how we better monetize other forms of music consumption,” he added, noting that “it would help if music subscription pricing could reflect the realities of inflation, which, as we’ve seen with video streaming services, have been putting up their prices quite significantly.”
When Robots Take Over
The future role that artificial intelligence (AI) will play in the record business was raised several times at the London launch event, with executives keen to highlight the technology’s potential for commercial growth, as well as some of the risks and challenges it brings. Some executives saw potential benefits in using AI to better analyze and understand fan engagement trends and artist discovery (something which platforms and music companies are already doing) and optimizing technical aspects of music production, including immersive sound.
On the flip side, execs issued a stark warning about human artistry being devalued at the expense of technology. AI developers, they said, could fail to respect the rights of creators by using artist recordings to generate new content without authorization – a threat that Michael Nash, executive vp, chief digital officer at Universal Music Group, said he placed “at the top” of industry issues that need to be addressed. “We need to work very hard to define new models so that we can enable generative AI without looking away from what is essentially going to be wholesale hijacking of the intellectual property of the entire creative community,” wrote Nash in IFPI’s “Global Music Report” document.
Streaming May Dominate, But Physical Is Far From Dead
Having enjoyed a post-pandemic renaissance in 2021 — when sales of CDs increased for the first time this millennium and overall physical sales grew 16.1% — physical format revenue continued to be surprisingly resilient last year, rising 4% to $4.6 billion. It was the second consecutive year of growth for the format, once considered dead. Almost half (49.8%) of those global revenues came from Asia, where the humble CD remains a popular music purchase, particularly in South Korea and Japan, the region’s largest music market and world’s second biggest behind the U.S.
Vinyl revenues’ upward trajectory also continued, rising 17.1% over 2021, and while global CD sales slipped 0.4% year-on-year (IFPI didn’t provide financial values for CD or vinyl income), physical revenues still accounted for 17.5% of the overall recorded music market last year. That’s just under what ad-supported streams generate for labels and rights holders (representing 18.7% of global sales) and more than the combined haul from sync, performance rights and digital downloads.
All Eyes Turn Towards Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa overtook the Middle East and North Africa as the fastest growing region in 2022, with music sales rising almost 35% year-over-year, reports IFPI. Driving that growth was South Africa’s thriving music industry, Africa’s biggest market, which climbed by more than 31% last year, compared to modest 2.4% growth in 2021.
Nevertheless, the challenge of converting users of ad-based music services to paid subscription remains a considerable one, said Temi Adeniji, president of Warner Music Africa, with South Africa having around 4 million paid subscribers out of a population of nearly 50 million people. Adeniji said the burgeoning global popularity of Amapiano, a genre which originated in South Africa, was already producing crossover hits in markets like Nigeria. She predicts “an infusion of Amapiano elements” into other international music scenes over the next few years to further drive the region’s development as a key music territory.
China Climbs to Become a Top-Five Music Power
For years, music executives have talked up China — the world’s most populous country, home to 1.4 billion people, according to China’s National Bureau of Statistics – as a huge music market in waiting. In 2022, that potential was finally realized with China usurping France (a long-time mainstay in the upper echelons of the world music market rankings) as the fifth-biggest music market worldwide with revenues of $1.2 billion, up 28.4% year-on-year, according to IFPI. That’s on the back of 30% growth in 2021, when China was the world’s sixth-biggest music market.
The dominance of local streaming services QQ Music, Kugou Music, Kuwo Music, which are all owned by China-based Tencent Music Entertainment (TME, which publishes Billboard China), means that Western and international acts rarely feature on China’s many of domestic charts, which includes some run by China’s state-owned broadcaster. But the popularity of domestic pop stars like Jay Chou, Yisa Yu, Mao Buyi, Zhou Shen and Jackson Wang is now rapidly driving subscription take up in a country rife with piracy on a decade ago. TME’s most recent company filings report 85.3 million paying music users as of the third quarter of 2022.
Global music sales rose for the eighth consecutive year in 2022, with recorded music revenues growing in every world market and across almost all formats, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s (IFPI) “Global Music Report 2023.”
Total revenues climbed to $26.2 billion, a rise of 9% on the previous year. Although that rate of growth is half 2021 year’s rise, when revenues were up 18.5% year-on-year, IFPI said it was still the fourth highest growth level the recorded music business has seen this millennium.
The leading driver of growth was a 10.3% rise in paid-for streaming subscription revenue, which totaled $12.7 billion last year. IFPI reports there were 589 million users of paid subscription accounts at the end of 2022, up from 523 million in the previous 12 months and 443 million in 2020.
Streaming (including paid subscription and advertising-supported) now accounts for 67% of sales across the music industry, up from 65% in 2021 and 62% in 2020, although rate of growth is slowing.
In 2021, streaming revenues rocketed 24% to $16.9 billion. Last year, total revenues streaming revenues increased 11.5% to $17.5 billion.
Despite the dominance of streaming, physical music formats continue to be resilient with CD and vinyl revenues increasing for a second consecutive year — albeit at a slower rate than 2021’s 16.1% rise, fueled by a post-pandemic boom in home music purchases — to $4.6 billion, up 4% on the prior year.
Within physical music revenues, last year’s growth in CD sales proved to be a fleeting uplift with revenues falling 0.4% in 2022. Vinyl revenues shot up 17.1% (IFPI did not provide revenue numbers for CD or vinyl sales).
In terms of market share, physical accounted for 17.5% of the overall market last year (down from 19.2% in 2021) with Asia generating almost half (49.8%) of all global revenues for physical music sales.
Performance rights revenue climbed 8.6% to $2.5 billion, representing 9.4% of global revenues, while sync income was up 22.3% to $0.6 billion, representing 2.4%.
Downloads and what IFPI classifies as other (non-streaming) digital formats was once again the only format channel to record a decline, falling 11.7% to $900 million and representing just 3.6% of the global market.
As per previous year’s reports, IFPI uses current exchange rates when compiling its Global Music Report, restating all historic local currency values on an annual basis. Market values therefore vary retrospectively as a result of foreign currency movements, says IFPI, which represents more than 8,000 record company members worldwide, including all three major labels, Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.
Thanks to sustained growth in streaming, global recorded music revenues have now reached their highest level since 1999 — when music sales totaled $22.3 billion – on an absolute dollar basis, not accounting for inflation, reports IFPI. Piracy and declining physical sales saw the market bottom out at $13.1 billion in 2014.
“Record companies’ investment and innovation has helped make music even more globally interconnected than ever,” said IFPI chief executive Frances Moore in a statement, accompanying the report.
As the music economy grows, however, “so too do the areas in which record companies must work to ensure that the value of the music artists are creating is recognized and returned,” Moore warned.
Referring to the ongoing threat of music piracy, she said the challenges for record companies, artists and creators are “becoming increasingly complex as a greater number of actors seek to benefit from music whilst playing no part in investing in and developing it.”
Writing in the report’s foreword, Universal Music Group chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge said “to succeed, music’s future must be artist-centric.” He called on the industry to focus on building a “robust, growing and sustainable music ecosystem” in which “creators of all music content, whether in the form of audio or short-form video, are fairly compensated and can therefore thrive for decades to come.”
IFPI’s Global Music Report 2023 Topline Figures:
Global music sales up 9% to $26.2 billion
Streaming subscription revenues up 10.3% to $12.7 billion
Total streaming revenues (including paid and ad-supported) up 11.5% to $17.5 billion
Physical revenues up 4% to $4.6 billion
Performance rights revenues rise 8.6% to $2.5 billion
589 million paid music subscribers
Streaming’s share of global music sales: 67%
In terms of world markets, the U.S. retains its number one position with music sales growing 4.8% and exceeding $10 billion in recorded music sales for the first time.
Japan holds steady in second place with sales growing 5.4% in 2022. The third and fourth-biggest markets for recorded music remain the United Kingdom (+5.4%) and Germany (+2.2%), respectively.
The rest of the top 10 is made up of China (+28.4%), which becomes a top five global market for the first time, France (+7.7%), South Korea, Canada (+8.1%), Brazil (+15.4%) and Australia (+8.1%).
IFPI said that music sales were up in all 62 of the global markets it tracks. The organization’s free-to-access report does not provide market-by-market revenue breakdowns.
On a regional basis, it was a similar story with revenues from the U.S. and Canada region up 5%, while Latin America – where streaming now accounts for 85.2% of the market — saw growth of 25.9%
The fastest-growing market region in 2022 was Sub-Saharan Africa, which recorded a 34.7% rise in music sales, largely driven by the booming music market in South Africa, where sales were up by more than 30% year-on-year.
Revenues in Middle East and North Africa, last year’s fastest growing region, rose by almost 24%, driven almost entirely by streaming, which has 95.5% share of the region’s recorded music market – the highest share for any region worldwide, reports IFPI.
Revenues in Europe, the second-largest recorded music region in the world after the U.S. and Canada, grew by 7.5% — compared to the prior year’s growth rate of 15.4% — driven by gains in Europe’s three biggest markets, the U.K., Germany and France. Asia grew by 15.4%.
Another day, another historical win for Bad Bunny.
The Puerto Rican star’s Un Verano Sin Ti has won the IFPI Global Album Award, becoming the first Latin artist to ever win an IFPI global award, according to the organization.
IFPI, the trade association that represents recorded music industry worldwide, announced Friday (Feb. 24) that UVST — which spent a total of 13 non-consecutive weeks atop the Billboard 200 and became the first Spanish-language album to be nominated for album of the year at the Grammy Awards — topped the Top 20 Global Albums chart in 2022.
“We are incredibly excited to award Bad Bunny, the first Latin American artist to win an IFPI Global Award, with the Album of the Year Award,” Frances Moore, chief executive, IFPI, said in a statement. “His unique sound, encapsulated in his award-winning album Un Verano Sin Ti, has captured the world’s attention on a remarkable scale over the last 12 months.
Elsewhere on the Top 20 Global Albums, which takes into account all consumption formats, spanning physical sales, digital downloads and streaming platforms across a calendar year, Taylor Swift’s Midnights came in second place. Earlier in the week, the IFPI announced Swift was the global recording artist of the year, winning for a third time after already having topped the tally in 2014 and 2019.
Meanwhile, Harrys Styles’ Harry’s House took the third spot on the Top 20 Global Albums chart. His hit song “As It Was” was crowned with IFPI’s Global Single Award for 2022, an honor that recognizes the top performing single across all platforms, and all markets.
“This year’s Global Albums Chart bears testament to the incredible partnerships that exist between artists and record labels,” Moore added. “These partnerships nurture and support artists while they write and record their music before going on to promote albums on a global level, achieving extraordinary amounts of success around the world.”
Rounding out the top five global albums are BTS’ Proof and the the original soundtrack for Encanto came in at No. 5. Also on the list are Olivia Rodrigo’s Sour, Beyoncé’s Renaissance and Drake’s Certified Lover Boy. The full Top 20 list can be seen below.
IFPI Top 20 Global Albums of 20221/ Bad Bunny, Un Verano Sin Ti2/ Taylor Swift, Midnights3/ Harry Styles, Harry’s House4/ BTS, Proof5/ Encanto Cast, Encanto (OST)6/ Stray Kids, Maxident7/ Seventeen, Face the Sun8/ Blackpink, Born Pink9/ Olivia Rodrigo, Sour10/ Ed Sheeran, =11/ Enhypen, Manifesto: Day 112/ Morgan Wallen, Dangerous: The Double Album13/ Doja Cat, Planet Her14/ Stray Kids, Oddinary15/ The Weeknd, Dawn FM16/ Tomorrow x Together, minisode 2: Thursday’s Child17/ Beyoncé, Renaissance18/ Seventeen, Sector 1719/ The Kid Laroi, F*ck Love (Mix Tape)20/ Drake, Certified Lover Boy
We’ve all lived in Harry’s House in recent times, as Grammy Awards, Brit Awards and now a special IFPI Award go the way of Harry Styles.
The British pop star’s megahit “As It Was” is crowned with IFPI’s Global Single Award for 2022, an honor that recognizes the top performing single across all platforms, and all markets.
Lifted from Styles’ third solo studio album Harry’s House, “As It Was” racked up 2.28 billion global equivalent streams last year, according to the trade association, an impressive distance ahead of Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” (1.75 billion streams) and The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber’s “Stay” (1.74 billion), which respectively complete the podium.
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The IFPI Global Single Award is presented each year to the act with the world’s “best-selling” single across all digital formats — including paid subscription streaming, ad-supported platforms, and single-track downloads.
Following its release April 1, 2022, “As It Was” made its home at the top of sales charts on both sides of the Atlantic and across the globe.
In the U.K., it logged 10 weeks at No. 1, as Styles went on to sweep all four Brit Awards for which he was nominated — artist of the year, Mastercard album of the year, song of the year and the fan-voted pop/R&B act.
The single led the Billboard Hot 100 chart for an astonishing 15 weeks, helping Styles to win Grammys for album of the year and best pop vocal album, both for Harry’s House.
Styles even won the fan-voted best international artist at the 2022 ARIA Awards, after “As It Was” reigned over the national Australian chart for six weeks.
The Brit is no stranger to IFPI silverware. He first received an IFPI Award as part of One Direction when the association first launched the IFPI Global Recording Artist Chart 10 years ago.
Frances Moore, CEO of IFPI, congratulates the former 1D star and remarks: “It’s wonderful to see such a diverse mixture of songs in the Global Singles Chart this year – some familiar tracks from the previous year that continued to grow in 2022, amongst plenty of new tracks and some reimagined older tracks – all going to show that record companies are working hard to find new ways to ensure music fans around the world have access to such a wide range of music year on year.”
Earlier in the week, the IFPI anointed Taylor Swift as the global recording artist of the year, winning for an unprecedented third time, having already topped the tally in 2014 and 2019.
Styles came in at No. 8 on that official list, which ranks acts’ worldwide performance across digital and physical music formats during the year, from streams to vinyl, and covers their entire body of work.
IFPI Top 10 Global Singles 2022
Harry Styles- As It Was (2.28bn)
Glass Animals – Heat Waves (1.75bn)
The Kid LAROI and Justin Bieber – STAY (1.74bn)
Elton John and Dua Lipa – Cold Heart (PNAU Remix) (1.34bn)
The Weeknd – Save Your Tears (1.32bn)
Imagine Dragons & JID- Enemy (1.26bn)
Ed Sheeran – Shivers (1.23bn)
GAYLE – abcdefu (1.22bn)
Bad Bunny & Chencho Corleone – Me Porto Bonito (1.21bn)
Ed Sheeran – Bad Habits (1.20bn)
Bad Bunny – Tití Me Preguntó (1.14bn)
Dua Lipa – Levitating (feat. DaBaby) (1.11bn)
Adele – Easy On Me (1.03bn)
The Weeknd- Blinding Lights (1.01bn)
Lil Nas X and Jack Harlow – INDUSTRY BABY (1.01bn)
Kate Bush – Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) (1.00bn)
Encanto Cast – We Don’t Talk About Bruno (0.95bn)
Farruko – Pepas (0.94bn)
Jack Harlow – First Class (0.92bn)
Karol G – PROVENZA (0.92bn)
*Global subscription streams equivalent
LONDON – Taylor Swift has added more hardware to her overflowing trophy cabinet with the star being crowned 2022’s Global Recording Artist of the Year by international trade group IFPI. It’s the third time that Swift has won the annual honor, which recognizes the year’s best-selling act across physical sales, downloads and streaming worldwide, making Swift the most successful artist in the award’s 10-year history.
Swift previously won the honor in 2014 and 2019 and placed second in last year’s chart behind K-pop group BTS. She also charted in the top three of IFPI’s global artist rankings in 2015, 2017 and 2020. BTS and Drake are the only other acts to have collected the award more than once, with two wins apiece, while Swift becomes the first artist to receive it three times.
Announcing the award, IFPI chief executive Frances Moore called Swift “a truly magnificent international star, who continues to grow and evolve as an artist whilst maintaining an incredibly strong connection with her fans around the world.”
Swift’s 10th studio album, Midnights, was released in October, debuting at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and moving 1.578 million equivalent album units in the U.S. in its first week – the biggest sales week for any album in nearly seven years, according to Luminate. Midnights spent five weeks atop the Billboard 200, as well as topping charts around the world, including five weeks at No.1 in the United Kingdom. IFPI did not provide global sales figures for Swift.
Second in IFPI’s 2022 Global Artist Chart, which measures worldwide consumption across all formats and an artist’s entire body of work, not just music released last year, was K-pop superstars BTS. It is the group’s third consecutive year in the Top 3 following back-to-back wins in 2020 and 2021.
Drake placed third, ahead of Bad Bunny, who becomes the first-ever artist from Latin America to enter IFPI’s Top 5. It was also a successful year for acts from South Korea with boy bands SEVENTEEN and Stray Kids charting at No. 6 and No. 7, respectively, while Jay Chou is the first Taiwanese artist to feature in the Top 10. The United Kingdom is represented by Harry Styles (No. 8) and Ed Sheeran (No. 10), with Canada’s The Weeknd charting at No. 5. The full Top 20 list can be seen below.
IFPI Top 20 Global Recording Artists of 20221/ Taylor Swift 2/ BTS 3/ Drake 4/ Bad Bunny 5/ The Weeknd 6/ SEVENTEEN 7/ Stray Kids 8/ Harry Styles 9/ Jay Chou 10/ Ed Sheeran 11/ Eminem 12/ Kanye West 13/ YoungBoy Never Broke Again 14/ Kendrick Lamar 15/ Lil Baby 16/ Billie Eilish 17/ Post Malone 18/ Juice WRLD 19/ The Beatles 20/ Imagine Dragons