The Recording Industry Association of America announced Tuesday that U.S. recorded music revenue reached $5.6 billion across all formats in the first half of 2025, marking a modest 1% increase compared to the same period in 2024. Streaming remained the dominant force in the market, generating $4.68 billion and accounting for 84% of total revenue, with paid subscriptions leading the way — growing 6.4% to 105 million accounts and contributing $3.2 billion, a 5.7% year-over-year increase.
This year, RIAA began reporting figures on a wholesale basis, which it says aligns its report with international standards like IFPI’s Global Music Report. The change aims to better reflect the actual value returned to the creative ecosystem and enable “more consistent cross-market comparisons,” the organization said.
The reality is that the change makes it difficult to compare year over year performance for all metrics other than overall wholesale revenue. In the past, RIAA reported overall revenues in both retail and wholesale terms, then included more detailed breakdowns for streaming, digital and physical sales and SoundExchange distributions at retail values, not wholesale. This year’s report, in only showing wholesale figures, makes it impossible to track growth going back the past decade, as had been custom.
Additionally, RIAA’s U.S. Music Revenue Database, which had contained retail revenue breakdowns by format going back decades to the 1970s, has been removed from its website. The following figures, then, are in wholesale terms, with year over year comparisons only available going back to midyear 2024, as now provided by RIAA.
Vinyl sales totaled 22.1 million units, down 1% from 22.3 million a year ago, and were valued at $457 million. Other physical formats lagged, too, but the distance between them and vinyl grew. CD sales plummeted 22.3% to $108.1 million, with 11.7 million units sold — half of vinyl’s total. The other category — encompassing cassettes, CD singles, vinyl singles, DVD audio and SACD — dipped 2.9% to $11.4 million. Physical sales reduced its percentage of total revenue to 10% from 11.4% in the prior-year period. Vinyl represents over three-quarters of all physical music revenue, and for the fifth consecutive year, more vinyl records were shipped than CDs.
Streaming continues to lead the U.S. industry in revenue, generating $4.67 billion in the first half of 2025 — up 3.8% year-over-year and accounting for 84% of the market — driven largely by paid subscriptions, which rose 6.3% to $2.8 billion with 105.3 million average subscribers, showing no signs of churn despite recent price hikes from services like Spotify.
Other streaming segments saw mixed results: limited-tier subscriptions dipped 0.4% to $262.7 million, and ad-supported on-demand streaming fell 2.9% to $875 million. Download sales continued their steady decline, now making up just 3% of total revenue, with overall sales down 1.4% to $138.6 million — track sales dropped 0.3%, digital albums fell 13.7%, and ringtone/ringback sales declined 5% to $2.1 million. The “other digital” category, including kiosks and music video downloads, grew 41.5% to $24.1 million. Synchronization royalties declined, falling 7.9% to $196 million.
In a statement, RIAA chairman/CEO Mitch Glazier highlighted paid subscriptions reaching a milestone: “The number of paid subscriptions hit a historic milestone, surpassing 100 million accounts, while revenues from all formats reached $5.6 billion in the first half of 2025 – important markers that underscore music’s enduring value and demand for human artistry supported by record labels and collaborative partnerships.”
RIAA vp of research Matt Bass said the latest figures reflect a “stable and sustainable foundation” for the U.S. music industry, with American artists making up one-third of global streams—more than the next six countries combined — and that “aligning our reporting to international standards allows us to tell that story more clearly than ever.”
