Spotify: Australian Artists Were Discovered More Than 2.7 Billion Times In 2023

Spotify its published the latest edition of their annual Loud & Clear report, and the Australian income data looks mighty promising: for example, local artists generated nearly $275 million in royalties throughout 2023 – up almost ten percent from 2022’s pull – and approximately half of that was brought in by independent artists.

Indies ruled the streaming industry at large last year. According to the report, artists who aren’t signed to major labels accounted for roughly half of all royalties generated on Spotify globally (totalling more than $9 billion).

Spotify sees the Australian music industry as an export powerhouse, generating much-needed income for local artists. More than 80 percent of royalties generated by local artists on Spotify came from international listeners, with the US, UK and Germany cited as three key markets. To that end, Australian artists were discovered by first-time listeners more than 2.7 billion times around the world – largely thanks to Spotify’s editorial playlists, which platformed more than 4,000 Aussie artists last year.

While these statistics paint a glowing picture of Australia’s strength as an export market, there have been concerns raised about the health of our domestic music industry. Take, for example, the stat that over 80 percent of royalties brought in by Australian music came from overseas: another way to look at that is that less than 20 percent of Australian music streams are being generated locally.

It’s overwhelmingly common for Australian artists to focus overseas to find sustainable careers in the music industry. TheMusic.com.au asked representatives of Spotify whether its data reflected a drop in the domestic consumption of Australian music, however they declined to answer. TheMusic.com.au understands from multiple sources that despite the ongoing export success, streaming consumption of Australian artists in Australia has reached a historically low level, hitting single figures on some streaming platforms.

It was pointed out, though, that other markets have similar local consumption stats: for example, 92 percent of Canadian music was streamed by non-Canadians. The Canadian government announced a levy on streaming services to go towards the development of local content last year. Opposed by Spotify, the company suggested that the policy could “require us to cut expenses, including reduce our resources for editorial, partnership, and promotional programs in Canada or reduce resources currently going back to the music ecosystem”. It is unknown what impact if any those changes have made to Canada’s domestic consumption.

In the UK however, 25 percent of UK artist streams were generated locally as reported by Music Ally, showing either a healthier local domestic music market, or proportionally less export success than their Australian and Canadian counterparts. Without platforms revealing local content percentages (as radio are obliged to do through government regulation), the picture of domestic cultural consumption across the globe remains hazy.

We were able to speak directly with Spotify Australia’s Head Of Music, Alicia Sbrugnera, who assured us “volume is growing across both domestic and international audiences, resulting in more and more artists sharing in revenue”. She explained that nearly half of Australia’s population is active on Spotify, and over the last 12 months, the platform has added 100 million monthly active listeners.

Sbrugnera added of Spotify’s success with Australian music overseas: “While we see success in English-speaking markets such as the US and the UK, Australian artists are accelerating their growth through new major export markets in the Asia Pacific. Jakarta and Manilla are trigger cities, as they are both consistently very early adopters of music, and we are also seeing a highly engaged youth audience consuming Australian music in countries such as Germany, Mexico, Canada and Brazil.”

She went on to note that emerging international markets “expected to represent the majority of music subscribers by 2026”, and cited the likes of Keenan Te, grentperez, Ruel and Troye Sivan as four Australian artists “who are breaking on the international stage and finding success outside of traditional export markets”.

Meanwhile, Spotify’s editorial team works closely with the tech-focused side of the company, aiding in their efforts to discover and break more new artists. “We apply machine learning technology and leverage human expertise to deliver an individual audio experience,” Sbrugnera says, “because personalisation is everything for our listeners and pivotal to the Spotify experience.

“Technology is used to enhance our ability to deliver a personalised experience, no matter when or how people choose to stream audio. The DJ [feature] is the perfect example of how we created a music listening experience that is deeply personalised to each individual listener, yet at scale. To create the commentary within the DJ experience, we created a writers’ room and put generative AI in the hands of our music experts.”

You can read Spotify’s 2023 Loud & Clear report in its entirety here.