Latin music continues its winning streak with U.S. recorded music revenues growing 37% to $407 million for the first six months of 2021, according to the RIAA’s 2021 mid-year Latin revenue report.
The growth of Latin music revenues (with “Latin” understood as music that’s performed primarily in Spanish) outpaced that of the overall U.S. music market, which grew by 27% in the first half of 2021 compared to the same period the year prior.
Latin music now represents a 5.8% share of the overall U.S. market with revenues hitting $407 million in the first half of 2021 — 96% of which came from streaming for $393 million.
The genre’s growth has been rapid over the past few years: The genre’s revenue for the first half of 2019 was $250 million, and then jumped to $298 in the first half of 2020.
Paid streaming subscriptions grew 41% to $279 million, while ad-supported on-demand streaming revenue increased 30% to $77 million. Revenues from digital and custom radio services also rebounded, growing 24% to $37 million after a slight decline in 2020.
“It’s incredible to see continued double-digit growth in Latin music — outpacing the already strong performance we’ve seen across other music segments and categories and powering new opportunities and greater diversity across our business,” said Michele Ballantyne, RIAA COO, in a statement. “This sustained and accelerating expansion speaks to a rising openness to new artists, music and ways of listening — with younger fans now spending 20% of their time listening in languages other than English.”
You can access the full RIAA report here.