For the first time in three years, the closely watched Goldman Sachs “Music in the Air” report raised its growth forecast for certain areas of the music industry economy, as music shifts from a reliance on subscriber growth and streaming penetration to a mature era based on monetization.
The report’s authors said the global recorded music market in 2025 beat its prior expectations by growing 6.4% to $31.7 billion in constant currency compared to 2024 — a beat of 60 basis points.
Related
The next chapter of growth will be fueled by more frequent subscription price increases, live events and retail sales growth from physical, downloads and other digital and synch revenues, the report found. Receding in importance will be ad-supported streaming revenue growth, which Goldman expects to slow by 1% to 3%.
While overall streaming revenue growth grew by 7.7% in 2025 compared to the 7.4% Goldman analysts expected, subscription streaming missed expectations, growing by 8.8% compared to expected revenue growth of 9.0%. Goldman blames streaming companies’ push to gain more users in emerging markets, where the average revenue per user is lower compared to the United States, along with discounted and bundled subscription offerings.
Physical sales far exceeded Goldman analysts’ prior expectations, growing by 8% year over year compared to 1.4%, as vinyl demand rose nearly 14%, including among superfans in markets like Japan, South Korea and the U.S.
Goldman now expects global music industry retail revenue to grow by 6.7% in 2026 from 2025 and to achieve a compound average growth rate (CAGR) of 5.8% from 2025 to 2035.
The report also found that recorded music rights-holder revenue is expected to grow by 5.9% on a compound average basis over the coming decade.
Goldman analysts did downgrade their expectations for synch and performance rights, which both underperformed compared to expectations, in part because of a slower rebound from the Hollywood writers’ strike in 2023. Synch revenue contracted by 2.0% compared to expectations of 6.0% growth, and performance rights were up by only 0.3% compared to expected growth of 6.0%.