For many people, online streaming is now the preferred method for viewing shows, movies, sports, and events, so it should come as no surprise that this applies to music as well. From Netflix to YouTube to Spotify streaming services operate in almost every country, though as we’ll see, certain platforms do better in some locations than others.
As streaming becomes increasingly popular, we’re given access to a massive amount of data that can be used to help quantify the growing trends that promise to bring an end to traditional entertainment avenues. In this post, we reveal recent facts and statistics that help paint a picture of the video and music streaming industries.
Video streaming stats and facts
As internet bandwidth and speeds increase, streaming video is becoming a viable option for more consumers across the world. In many countries, users can now stream all of their favorite video content, from live TV to on-demand video. Here are some of the most eye-opening stats from 2018–2022 that help illustrate the current trends in video streaming.
1. Netflix is starting to lose ground to other streaming services
While Netflix has long been considered the streaming service to have, other providers have been eating into its userbase. For instance, Disney+ had over 164 million subscribers as of October 2022, though HBO Max was hot on its heels with 96.1 million. Meanwhile, newcomer Paramount+ had a fantastic year, ending 2022 with nearly 80 million paying subscribers.
2. Netflix still has roughly 230 million subscribers
Don’t worry: Netflix isn’t going away anytime soon. By the end of 2022, this service had 230 million subscribers, which actually beat the company’s growth expectations. One of the biggest reasons for this jump was likely the introduction of a less expensive ad-supported tier. Just two months after its release, there were a million users on this plan; not bad considering it’s only available in North America!
The closest competitor is Amazon Prime Video which also has more than 200 million members, although since this is rolled into its standard Amazon Prime membership, it doesn’t give a clear indicator of how many people use the streaming service. Another prominent player is China’s dominant streaming service, iQIYI, which has around 110 million paid subscribers.
3. YouTube has 2 billion monthly active users
More than two billion logged-in users access YouTube every month. The platform has over 30 million daily users watching over a billion hours of video every day. YouTube’s Android app has over 10 billion installs and the iOS version was one of 2021’s 10 most downloaded apps from the App Store.
4. Disney will spend over $9 billion on content in 2022
In 2021, Disney spent approximately $25 billion on content. This rose in 2022, when the company spent over $33 billion. However, it’s slowing down a little in 2024, with a budget of at least nine billion. CEO Bob Chapek claims that the main focus for this fiscal year will be producing more “local and regional content”.
To put this in context, Netflix has an expected annual spend of $17 billion on original content in 2023, meaning that it’ll spend more than its rival for the first time in years.
5. Cost, ease of use, and variety are the most important streaming service attributes
According to a 2022 Nielsen report, 84 percent of users rank cost as either extremely or very important when selecting a streaming service. This is closely followed by ease of use (81 percent), variety or availability of content (79 percent), streaming and playback quality (77 percent), and speed of menu selection and content loading (74 percent).
6. Customers are tiring of subscribing to multiple services
Nielsen’s State of Play report found that 46 percent of subscribers have difficulty finding something to watch due to the sheer number of streaming services. Further, 64 percent of respondants expressed desire for a service that would let them pick and choose streaming services as though they were channels in a traditional TV plan.
7. Collectively, we’re streaming more than ever
According to Conviva’s state of streaming Q2 2022 report, we’re all using streaming services more frequently. There was a huge jump in streaming during the pandemic, but also an average increase of 14 percent globally from Q2 2021 to Q2 2022. Nielsen’s The Gauge report found that streaming accounting for one third of all TV time in June 2022.
Of course, some regions accounted for larger increases than others. Asia’s streaming time spiked 90 percent in the last year alone, following along from a huge 172 percent increase the year prior.
8. The global streaming market will be worth upwards of $1.69 trillion by 2029
According to Fortune Business Insights, the global streaming market was worth 372 billion in 2021, with an expected growth of around 19.9 percent per year until 2030, when the industry would be worth $1.69 trillion. That’s a significant increase from prevous forecasts, which placed the industry value at around $184.3 billion in 2027.
9. Netflix branches out in a bid to keep subscribers
No doubt concerned by the recent flood of cancellations, Netflix has decided to add several new features to its business model. First off, it has begun including fairly high-profile games such as Into the Breach with its regular subscriptions. Additionally, it’s allowing users to continue sharing their passwords for a small additional fee (though time will tell how well this is received). Finally, it introduced an ad-supported tier in early 2023.
10. The most-watched shows rack up billions of streaming minutes
The 2022 Nielsen streaming report showed that while familiar shows like Grey’s Anatomy remain extremely popular, Netflix Originals come out on top in the short term. For instance, Stranger Things accounted for more than 50 billion minutes of viewtime all by itself.
The most streamed original series of 2022 were Stranger Things, Ozark, Cobra Kai, Wednesday, and Bridgerton, all of which happen to be Netflix series. In fact, 13 of the 15 most-streamed original series were Netflix titles. Prime Video did fight back with its own high-budget shows The Boys and The Rings of Power, thogh these came in at number 11 and 15, respectively.
11. Disney+ has a monopoly on the most popular movies
Surprising absolutely noone, Disney+ had 10 of the most popular movies for streaming in 2022. This included Encanto, Turning Red, Moana, Frozen II, and Hocus Pocus 2. Meanwhile, Netflix picked up the remaining five places with Don’t Look Up, Sing 2, The Gray Man, The Adam Project, and Uncharted.
12. People tried out lots of streaming services during the COVID-19 pandemic
It’s official: streaming is the future. More than 80 percent of US households have at least one streaming subscription, and the pandemic saw a slight increase in the number of American customers, according to Deloitte’s Digital Media Trends Survey, 15th edition.
What’s especially interesting is that people seem to be trying out a wide range of services, not necessarily just video streaming. According to Deloitte’s Digital Media Trends Survey, 16th edition, around 60 percent of millenials and Gen Z said that they spent more time browsing user-generated content (via apps like TikTok) than they did streaming.
13. Desktops are no longer popular choices for streaming in Asia
In previous years, people in Asian countries tended to stream significantly more on their PCs than anyone else in the world. However, the Conviva Q1 2022 report shows that this is on the decline. PCs now account for seven percent of viewing time, down from 49 percent in 2021. Most streaming is now done on mobile, with 45 percent, followed by big screens (such as a TV) at 43 percent. In last place was tablets which accounted for just five percent.
14. Users subscribe to an average of 4 video streaming services
The Deloitte Digital Media Trends Study, 15th edition, found that subscribers in the US have accounts with an average of four streaming video services. However, according to the 16th edition, the rate of “churn” (that is, someone cancelling one service and signing up for another) has remained fairly steady at 27 percent.
Almost half (43 percent) of US consumers pay for TV as well as their streaming service subscriptions. This number is higher in Gen Xers as more than half (53 percent) pay for both TV and streaming services. The same study notes that having to deal with multiple services to access all the shows they want is frustrating for many users.
15. Younger consumers tend to cancel and resubscribe
Deloitte’s 2022 Digital Media Trends report shows that the younger a customer is, the more likely they are to cancel and resubscribe at a later date. It could be that these generations have less disposable income and so simply sign up to binge a handful of specific shows at a time. 
16. Access to original content is a top reason for staying subcribed
Deloitte found that one of the major reasons viewers continue to pay for streaming services is to access movies and shows that aren’t available elsewhere. 27 percent of users cited this as a top reason, with the only more popular answer being to pay less for an ad-supported version.
17. Too many ads are pushing viewers away from pay TV
Previous Deloitte reports have found that having to sit through too many advertisements is one of the reasons viewers are opting for streaming services. 44 percent of consumers cited an ad-free experience as being a top reason for using streaming services. Ads make up a whopping 20 minutes out of every hour of TV. 75 percent of viewers think this is massive overkill and 82 percent express frustration with having to see the same ads time and again.
The most recent study, though, found that on average, consumers are okay with 12 minutes of ads per hour as long as there’s no monthly fee. This is huge, since last time, users claimed they’d tune out if a service played more than 14 minutes per hour.
18. TikTok was the most popular video streaming app
According to data.ai’s State of Mobile Report 2023, TikTok became the most popular entertainment app in 2022. Previous winner YouTube was unceremoniously kicked out of the top 10, though it did still rank highly on customer spending.
19. TikTok’s monetization is second to none
The statistics in the data.ai report combine numbers from the iOS App Store and Google Play Store. TikTok was far beyond its rivals in terms of consumer spending, becoming the second app ever (after Tinder) to reach $6 billion. In fact, in the US, it generates around $0.85 per user, per month. This doesn’t sound like a lot, but Snapchat has the second highest average monthly revenue per user, and that only makes five cents from each.
20. Gen Z and Gen Y are twice as likely as Pre-boomers to binge-watch shows
A 2020 study by Civic Science found that more than half of its respondents between the ages of 13 and 64 binge-watched shows. Millenials and Gen X adults had the highest rate of binge-watching, at 70 percent. Meanwhile, only 41 percent of people over 65 said they do the same.
Music streaming statistics
Music streaming is now bigger than ever, with billions of dollars going into the music streaming industry every year. Most music fans are now using subscription-based streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music, but video services like YouTube are also massive sources for music fans. Here are some key stats that help show how the industry is progressing.
21. Americans collectively streamed about 1.3 trillion songs in 2022
The music streaming biz hit a huge milestone on November 25, 2019. This was when number of audio and video-on-demand music streams in the US since the start of the year hit the one trillion mark. Having climbed to 1.13 trillion in 2021, this grew 12.2 percent to reach an unprecedented 1.3 trillion in 2022.
On-demand audio song streaming accounted for the majority (1.1 trillion) of the 2022 streams, although video represented a large chunk (200 billion).
22. Streaming grew by nine percent in 2022
According to a 2022 IFPI report, the global music industry increased by nine percent that year. That’s no small feat given that this marked its eighth consecutive year of growth. Additionally, music streaming services saw a jump in growth of 10.3 percent!
23. Nearly 40% of 35-64 year-olds streamed music in the past month
The use of streaming music services is increasing in older generations. A 2021 study from IFPI found that 38 percent of those aged 35-64 had streamed music within the past month. That said, it remains that music streaming is most popular among the younger generations with 60 percent of 16-24 year-olds and 61 percent of 25-34 year-olds taking advantage of audio streaming.
24. Instant access to songs is a top reason for choosing paid streaming services
The top three reasons IFPI found for users adopting a premium music streaming service in 2022 were:
- Ad-free listening
- Being able to choose what music to listen to
- Access to large libraries of songs
25. Sweden has the largest percentage of paid subscription streamers
A large portion of music listeners in many global markets are turning to streaming to get their fix. However, the popularity of paid subscription streaming is most pronounced in Sweden, where 56 percent of music listeners did so via paid services. The other top five countries included the UK (52 percent), the USA (51 percent), Germany (51 percent), and Mexico (50 percent).
26. Older generations are less likely to stream music
Billboard’s 2021 year-end report gives us a good look at how different generations stream music. As you might expect, Gen Z leads the way with more than three-quarters of respondants using music streaming services, regardless of location.
What’s particularly surprising is that almost 90 percent of American boomers do too. It’s hard to overstate how much of an outlier this is, given that the average adoption rate for this age group is just 56 percent. In fact, in Japan, only 34 percent of people over the age of 56 rely on streaming services for music.
27. Spotify is the most-used music streaming app globally
According to Midia Research, Spotify is the most popular streaming app in the world, accounting for 30.5 percent of all subscriptions. Apple Music is in a distant second place with 13.7 percent, while Tencent Music accounts for 13.4 percent.
According to Spotify’s most recent financial statements, it has 489 million monthly active users, with 205 million Premium subcribers. In other words, nearly 42 percent of people who use this service choose to pay for it.
28. Bad Bunny had 2022’s top-streamed album
IFPI’s annual Global Music Report offers up a ton of information about the music streaming scene. For instance, it lets us know that Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti was the most popular album, having been streamed 4.2 billion times.
29. Drake rules as the most-streamed artist of the 2010s
Drake racked up a total of 36.3 billion on-demand streams over the course of the decade. Although Post Malone did well to come in at second place, he was way behind with 18.9 billion streams. Rounding out the top three was Eminem with 17.8 billion streams. However, 2021’s most streamed artists were Bad Bunny, Taylor Swift, and BTS.
30. Harry Styles’ “As It Was” was the most-consumed song of 2022
With 1.5 billion streams, Harry Styles’ “As It Was” was by far the most popular stream of 2022. Other viral hits included Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” and “STAY” by The Kid LAROI.
31. More than 50 percent of people find new music while gaming
Deloitte’s 16th digital media trends survey revealed that 51 percent of people discover new music while playing games.
So what does this mean for creators? Simply, there’s a huge market out there that isn’t hearing your music, even if it’s being played on the radio. In fact, the Undertale soundtrack accounts for almost 950,000,000 streams on Spotify alone, and Minecraft‘s soundtrack has almost 800,000,000 streams.
32. Unlicensed streaming remains a problem
According to IFPI, around a third of people reported having used illegal methods to download and listen to music. This includes 43 percent of people under the age of 24.
33. Different regions have their own preferences
While the most popular genres in 2022 were pop, rock, hip-hop, and dance, there are around 500 genres for music lovers to choose from. More interestingly, these differ in popularity from one place to another.
It likely wouldn’t surprise you to learn that the US loves motown and that Japan has a huge audience for anime music. However, did you know that Canadians are big fans of goregrind or that in the UK, shoegaze is having a resurgence?
34. Audio streaming companies seek to branch out
In 2022, Spotify acquired Findaway, an audiobook platform, as well as Sonantic, an AI service that it plans to use for text-to-speech services. Meanwhile, Apple Music has introduced a time-synced lyrics feature, and Amazon Music reworked its service to make all of its music free to Prime subscribers.
With so many large companies innovating their products, companies in the music streaming space cannot afford to stand still, even if they’re currently on top. After all, there are plenty of alternative options for users to try.
See also: Cord-cutting statistics 2023