Indian Superstar Shreya Ghoshal
A recent report from music analytics company Luminate shows a significant decline in the dominance of English-language music streamed globally. Only three years ago in 2021, English tracks made up 67% of the top 10,000 most streamed songs worldwide. However, in the latest report for 2023 that share had plummeted to under 55%.
The trend is clear – non-English music is rapidly growing in popularity globally. Last year non-English songs accounted for over 45% of streams among the most listened to tracks. Spanish remained the second most streamed language despite declining share, while Hindi content streaming more than doubled.
Nowhere is this shift more apparent than in India, which is on track to become the biggest music streaming market globally. In 2023, India reached over 1 trillion streams – second only to the US. More impressively, Indian streams grew by a staggering 450 billion from the previous year.
This explosion in streaming is boosting Indian artists up the global charts. Hindi songs now make up nearly 8% of top streamed tracks worldwide, up from less than 4% just two years ago. If growth continues at the current pace, India will surpass the US in total music streams as early as 2024.
The trend in the largest market, the US, also reflects changing tastes. While English still dominates there with close to 89% of top streams, its share fell by almost 4% since 2021. In the same period, Spanish language music grew its share by nearly the same amount. Now over 1 in 10 top streams in the US are non-English.
It’s clear from the data that global audiences are opening up to a much more diverse mix of music beyond the English-speaking world. Countries like India are demonstrating the massive untapped potential in bringing local artists to worldwide fans. The future of music streaming is shaping up to be truly global in scope and appeal.
