Italian recorded music revenues rise by 8.5% in 2024 – Italy is the third-largest market in EU, growing more than global and regional averages

20 March 2025 - Press release

It's the seventh consecutive year of growth 
FIMI publishes its exclusive 2024 Report

 

For the seventh consecutive year of growth, the Italian recorded music market confirms its vitality with an overall increase of 8.5% in 2024, reaching almost half a billion euros (461.2 million) and positioning as the third-largest important market in the EU after Germany and France.

The Expansion of Digital and the Drive of Streaming
The driving force is streaming, representing 67% of total revenues and recording 13.5% growth - 308.1 million euros. With a total amount of 95 billion streams during 2024 (up 31% compared to 2023), the most relevant segment is represented by subscriptions - which recorded an increase of 17.1% - while the ad-supported segment remains stable, recording a modest +0.4%: these data confirm the growing interest of Italian consumers in subscription-based models, which offer unlimited access to increasingly larger and more diversified catalogues. The video streaming segment also recorded a significant increase (+14.1%), demonstrating how audiovisual content continues to represent an important lever for music consumption.

And despite the physiological decline in downloads (-12.7%), the Italian digital market as a whole reached 312.2 million euros, with a growth of 13.1% compared to 2023.

 

The impact of the Government's Culture Cards on the slowdown of Physical
Beyond the unstoppable advance of digital, the physical market continues to play an important role, accounting for 13% of total revenues, although overall it recorded a 2.1% decline, settling at 61.3 million euros. This slowdown is due to the replacement of the Italian Government's Culture Bonus with the new Culture Cards for income brackets and excellent students, which have provided less incentive for purchasing recorded music.

Despite the overall decline in the segment, vinyl remains the preferred physical medium format for Italian music lovers with a growth of 6.8% (38.9 million euros): this is the sixth consecutive year of growth for the format that places Italy as the eighth-largest market globally.

 

Reversed trends for Performance Rights and Synchronizations
Performance rights also recorded an increase of 2.6%, reaching 74.8 million euros and covering 16% of total revenues, representing the second source of revenues in the Italian record market after streaming.

Despite the decline recorded in the Private copy area due to the decline in electronic devices' sales, the overall figure testifies to the growing importance of royalties deriving from the public use of music: an area that continues to guarantee significant revenues for artists and producers.

On the contrary, Synchronizations recorded a 4.8% decline, bringing the segment's share to just 3% of total revenues: this is the result of an increasingly intense competition in the music licensing market and a slight reduction in investments in this area.

 

Italian music export on the rise
Royalties from Italian Music Export performed very well, reaching a total of 27.95 million euros in 2024, marking an increase of 13.8%: digital segment is naturally the main driver of this growth, with a significant increase of 24.4%.

Overall the growth of Italian music export revenues increased by over 16 million euros from 2020 to 2024, reaching a growth of 140% in just five years.

 

Redefining Italian music consumption
The 2024 data confirm the structural transformation of the Italian market, increasingly oriented towards digital and with consumption models based on access rather than ownership: the continuous expansion of paid streaming underlines a change in the listeners habits, with music in 2024 being more oriented towards new releases than the catalog (82% of streams come from songs released from 2010 onwards) and linked to the local repertoire (45% of total streams), which within the annual charts has gone from occupying 59% to 84% in the last ten years.

This result is linked to the great generational turnover that has not been recorded in other sectors of the Italian cultural industry: from 2014 to 2024, in fact, the average age of the artists present in the annual Top Ten has decreased by 31.7%.

Overall, the Italian record market confirms its highly dynamic nature, with prospects for further growth driven by technological innovation and new models of music consumption: insights and additional exclusive data are available in the new report THE ITALIAN RECORD MARKET available on the FIMI's website.