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Spotify ‘s Annual Report Releases Japan Data for the First Time
The 2023 edition of Spotify’s annual “Loud & Clear ” report has been released.
“Loud & Clear” is an annual report that has been published since 2021, summarizing payments and contributions to artists, labels, distributors (streaming services), music publishers, and others. For the first time in this release, country-specific data has also been disclosed. Data concerning Germany, Canada, France, Brazil, Italy, and Japan are included in the announcement.
It has been revealed that royalties generated by Japanese artists on Spotify in 2023 exceeded 20 billion yen. This figure represents an increase of over 1800% since the year following Spotify’s launch in Japan in 2017, reflecting the expansion of the streaming market overall. Additionally, it was disclosed that approximately half of these royalties are generated by international listeners, and about 60% come from indie artists and labels. Furthermore, the total amount paid by Spotify to the music industry in 2023 reached 9 billion dollars (equivalent to approximately 1.395 trillion yen at an exchange rate of 1 dollar = 155 yen).
In 2023, Japanese artists were discovered or played by first-time listeners on Spotify more than 2.7 billion times. Lamp, a band that continues to attract global attention with two songs ranking in the top 5 most played Japanese songs from the 2000s on Spotify in 2023, mentioned in an interview with Spotify that the widespread adoption of streaming services has allowed them to “live off music alone” and has made it easier for indie artists to be active. The interviews, conducted with Ayumu Imazu, Furui Riho, imase, Kan Sano, Michael Kaneko, and Lamp, are published on Spotify’s dedicated page “Spotify Japan — For the Record,” with excerpts also available on YouTube.
