The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has released its 2025 report on US music industry revenue. Below is a look at how the figures line up. The full report is available here.
Overall, revenue came in at $11.5 billion, up 3.1% from 2024.
Digital formats
As usual, streaming is the norm, with such making up 82% of all revenue ($9.5 billion) in 2025, up 3% from 2024. Digital downloads (i.e., buying MP3s from digital music stores) now make up only 2% of all revenue ($272.6 million), down 0.8% form 2024 (basically flat).
Digital purchases (and using MP3s, I suppose) have greatly declined since their 2000s heyday. Even physical sales easily eclipse the “old-school” method of buying songs on Apple Music.
Physical formats
Physical media sales made up 12% of all revenue in 2025, up 5% from 2024. Vinyl makes up most of this revenue, at just over $1 billion, or 75.5% of physical format revenue (up 9.3% from 2024). CDs make up $312.4 million, or 22.6%, of physical format revenue (down 7.8% from 2024). The remainder (cassette tapes, etc.) earned $25.8 million, or 1.9% of physical format revenue (up 16.5% from 2024).
Again, vinyl hasn’t sold this well since the 1980s; there’s also been some increase in interest in cassette tapes/old Walkmen. For myself, I don’t see the appeal; I still have an old cassette Walkman in storage, but associate it and vinyl as stuff that belongs in the past. CDs, the only physical format that’s actually future-proof (since they can be ripped to lossless FLAC files, or at least lossy MP3s), are also the only physical format that declined in sales.
Other
“Synchronization” makes up 4% of all revenue. This category is made up of royalties and fees from music used in TV shows, movies, video games, ads, and the like.
My personal music usage
I have music stored on my Jellyfin media server, and mostly use Finamp on my devices to access my music. (Though I’ve also used Symfonium.) My music collection is from a mix of: lossless FLAC files via ripped CDs; MP3s and FLACs I bought from Apple Music, Amazon Music, and other outlets over the years; and some free downloads (my local library used to subscribe to Freegal, but dropped their subscription). I also sometimes buy CDs from a local music store to rip to my media server.
I don’t tend to do the best job at keeping up with new music, so buying new music isn’t something I do frequently. That said, I definitely would rather have FLAC files over something like vinyl records; also, if I’m going to buy physical media, I’d much rather have CDs. CDs are future-proof, can be turned into MP3s/FLACs. and are cheaper than vinyl.
Given the above, I also don’t see a need to pay for a music streaming service. Also, buying music outright beats paying a monthly fee to prop up the likes of Spotify’s Joe Rogan.
What do you like to use for listening to music?
Photo by Brett Jordan: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-vinyl-record-on-a-turntable-4371576/ (Pexels)
