Australian Artists Generated a Record $275M on Spotify In 2023: Report

Australia’s independents are flexing, revenues are up, and the overwhelming majority of listeners are tuning in from abroad.

Those are some of the takeaways from Spotify Australia’s second annual Loud & Clear report, which explores the flow of Australian-made music on the streamer’s global network.

But first, the headline result.

Royalties generated by Australian artists from Spotify in 2023 reportedly reached nearly $275 million, up almost 10% since 2022.

That near-double-digit lift is broadly in line with the growth rates for 2023 reported earlier this year by ARIA and the IFPI.

The report also peers in on who is listening, and how. More than 80% of all royalties generated by Australian artists on Spotify were from listeners outside of Australia — including the global market-leading United States, plus the U.K. and Germany (both top 10 markets, according to the IFPI).

Also, Spotify reports, more than 4,000 Australian artists were added to editorial playlists during the reporting period, and, at the same time homegrown artists were “discovered” by first time listeners more than 2.7 billion times.

“Artists deserve clarity and transparency on the economics of music streaming,” comments Spotify Australia head of music Alicia Sbrugnera.

“There’s more money in the music industry than ever before and the data we shared today from our latest Loud & Clear report shows that more and more artists are sharing in that revenue and building careers.”

Earlier in the year, Spotify announced a record for the highest annual payment to the music industry from any single retailer, generating US$9 billion for 2023, with independents accounting for nearly half that sum (almost US$4.5 billion).

That’s against global revenue across all formats, which marched to US$28.6 billion in 2023, up 10.2%, the IFPI separately reported in March.

Spotify is by some distance the most popular audio streaming subscription service, with more than 615 million users worldwide, including 239 million subscribers across 184 markets.

In Australia, half of the population is on Spotify every month, Mikaela Lancaster, Spotify’s managing director of Australia and New Zealand, told The Music Network during SXSW Sydney 2023.

The publication of Spotify’s Australia’s Loud & Clear study for 2023 follows a call-out from the national artist managers community for a solution to homegrown artists’ “major discoverability problem,” an issue that was addressed with the presentation last week of “Michael’s Rule” for touring.

“The Australian music industry has completely transformed in recent years and Spotify has been a significant and consistent driver of that transformation,” comments Sbrugnera.

“We have proudly championed Australian artists for 11 years through editorial programming, best-in-class data and marketing tools, and partnerships for artist education, all driven by our local music team. With nearly $275 million in royalty payments in 2023 and a growth of almost 10% since 2022, it is clear that streaming has been a key factor in the Australian music industry becoming bigger than it has ever been.”