Latin Music Recorded Revenue Hit $685 Million in the U.S. During H1 2024, Report Shows — Streaming Plateau Concerns Persist

Thanks in large part to continued (albeit slower) streaming growth, Latin music generated a record $685.5 million during H1 2024, per a new report.

This and other noteworthy stats come from the RIAA’s newly released Latin music performance breakdown, covering Q1 and Q2 of the current year. At the top level, the space’s recorded revenue represents a 7.3% YoY improvement.

And in keeping with longstanding consumption trends, the lion’s share of the $685.5 million at hand, $670.3 million, derived from streaming, the analysis shows. Consequently, the latter category’s 6.8% YoY growth drove a big portion of the period’s overall gains.

However, bearing in mind the H1 2024 streaming-expansion slowdown of the broader U.S. recorded music market, Latin music’s paid-streaming growth fell dramatically in the year’s initial half, from 23% YoY in H1 2023 to 6.4% ($468.1 million total).

Notwithstanding that pernicious plateau on the subscriber side, Latin music ad-supported on-demand streaming revenue jumped 10.2% YoY to $166.3 million after dipping 0.2% YoY in H1 2023, according to both reports.

SoundExchange distributions are said to have come out to $21.6 million (up 1.2% YoY) in H1 2024, with revenue from other ad-supported streaming sources slipping 5.6% YoY to $14.4 million.

Unsurprisingly, domestic revenue attributable to Latin music permanent downloads fell by double digits in each sub-category during the year’s opening half, for a 21.2% YoY decline to $3.9 million as a whole. The carefully defined sync category kicked in $2.3 million (up 11% YoY), and physical revenue doubled from H1 2023 to $9 million at estimated retail value, per the analysis.

Though vinyl led the pack ($7.3 million, up 108.1% YoY) in the category, Latin music revenue from CDs ($1.7 million) also spiked 73.3% YoY, the resource indicates.

Bigger picture, the RIAA took the opportunity to emphasize Latin music’s growing share of the total domestic market, 7.9% for H1 2024.

“Latin music in the US continues to break through and reach new heights,” added RIAA research VP Matt Bass, “now providing nearly 8% of total recorded music revenues in the country. Strong growth across all major formats – including a doubling of physical revenues – has enabled Latin music’s diverse mix of new and established artists’ innovative styles to fuel sustained momentum for over a decade.”

Looking ahead to the forthcoming full-year 2024 Latin music report, it’ll be particularly interesting to see whether paid-streaming growth picks back up – referring in part to whether superfan-related moves can at least begin to drive a revenue boost.

Of course, the same data is worth monitoring for the wider domestic industry, where total YoY growth came in at 3.9% and streaming subscribers expanded by just 2.7% YoY in H1 2024, the trade organization previously disclosed.