Taylor Swift being number one in a ranking is nothing special in and of itself. The American has already set too many records. One might think that Swift was the most streamed artist on Spotify this year (with more than 26.1 billion views) given the hype surrounding her “Eras Tour”. However, Bad Bunny has been at number one on Spotify’s “Wrapped” list for the past three years. The Puerto Rican rap star came in second this year, ahead of The Weeknd and Drake, the Swedish service said Wednesday. In Germany, Taylor Swift reached third place in the ranking of this year’s most streamed acts. At the top are two German-speaking rappers, Apache 207 and Bonez MC. RAF Camora and Luciano also follow in fourth and fifth place.
As of the end of November this year, Spotify is the clear market leader in music streaming with 226 million subscribers and 574 million monthly active users. In contrast to Spotify, the three major rivals only publish figures at irregular intervals. The comparison is further complicated by combination offers such as Apple One, where music only represents part of the available content.
Apple last gave figures only for Apple Music in June 2019; There are said to have been more than 60 million users at the time. Amazon’s most recent figures are also a bit older: at the beginning of 2020, around 55 million Amazon Music users were reported – including the free Prime offer. The most current data from YouTube comes from mid-November 2022: more than 80 million subscribers were mentioned, YouTube Music and YouTube Premium combined.
Apple has also just published its best lists for this year. The world’s number one artist here is also Taylor Swift. However, the world’s most streamed song on Apple Music comes from country star Morgan Wallen (“Last Night”); it does not appear in Spotify’s global annual list, but it does appear at number one on the US list for Swedes. In Germany, at Apple and Spotify, “Komet” by Apache 207 and Udo Lindenberg is at the forefront. The most viewed music video on YouTube in Germany was also the collaboration between these two. With a record 21 weeks at number one in the singles charts, which are primarily influenced by streaming, it was relatively expected that “Komet” would appear at the top of the services’ annual best lists, especially since it was released in January.
On the French music streaming service Deezer (9.9 million subscribers), The Weeknd leads the global leaderboard, followed by Swift and the band Imagine Dragons. The most streamed song worldwide on Deezer and Spotify was Miley Cyrus’ hit “Flowers”. The song reached number two in Germany on both Apple and Spotify.
Streaming has been the music industry’s biggest revenue driver for years. The services’ payouts contributed $17.5 billion to the $26.2 billion in total revenue in the global recorded music market last year. All services pay out around two thirds of their revenue to the rights holders of the songs featured on their platforms.
Most recently, Deezer and market leader Spotify announced adjustments to the distribution system according to which the money would be distributed among the songs.