Goldman Sachs now forecasts that global music revenue will grow from $112.5 billion in 2025 to $198.1 billion in 2035, according to Music Ally's October 16 report on the bank's 2026 “Music in the Air” study. It is the first upward revision after three years of cuts, and much of the growth it predicts comes from charging existing fans more.
HITS Daily Double put the turn plainly: “After three years of lowering its long-term forecasts for the music industry, Goldman Sachs has revised its 10-year projection upward.” Hypebot, whose write-up places the last upgrade in 2022, gave the shift a name: the business has moved from “a pure volume-and-adoption race into a mature, aggressive monetization era.” That phrase matters more than the headline figure. The extra money is not expected to come from millions of new listeners in rich countries. It is expected to come from the people already paying.
Where does Goldman say the growth comes from?
Four places, per Hypebot's summary of the report: routine subscription price hikes, emerging market penetration, direct-to-consumer superfan sales, and live events. HITS adds ad-supported revenue and emerging-market monetization to the recorded side. Music Ally quotes the report predicting that new label deals will nudge streaming services to “increase prices every 12-24 months across both individual and multi-user plans.”
The key numbers are below. Every figure is from the 2026 edition.
| Measure | 2025 | 2035 | Reported by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total music revenue | $112.5bn | $198.1bn | Music Ally, Hypebot |
| Paid streaming revenue | $17bn | $33bn | Music Ally, Hypebot |
| Recorded music (rightsholders) | $31.7bn | $56.1bn | Hypebot |
| Live music | $37.4bn | about $65bn | Hypebot, InterSpace |
| Paid subscribers | see note | 1.53bn | Music Ally, Hypebot |
One honest caveat on that last row: Music Ally prints a 2025 starting point of 873 million paid subscribers and Hypebot prints 837 million. Without the report itself, we print neither as the starting point. Both put 2035 at roughly 1.53 billion, which Music Ally says would be 21% of all internet users.
What does the monetization era mean for the fan who pays?
It means the bill goes up on a schedule. Hypebot reports Goldman's view that streaming services have broken the old $9.99 ceiling with little churn, and that hikes every one to two years are now the base case. Music Ally adds a proposed “ad-light” tier where free listeners pay $1 to $2 a month to hear fewer ads, which Goldman models at $788.3 million of extra revenue in 2035.
The bank also says it has been underrating the most devoted listeners. Its old assumption that superfans spend about twice what an average listener does is, per Hypebot, now judged “too conservative.” As evidence, the report cites storefronts where close to half of fans voluntarily pay more than the artist's minimum price. That is a real signal of love. It is also, to a forecaster, a price ceiling nobody has tested yet.
The growth story is no longer just about finding new listeners. It is about how much more the ones who already care will hand over.
And for the working artist who gets paid?
Here the report is more interesting than its headline. A price rise on a streaming plan flows first to services and rightsholders, and how much of it reaches a songwriter or a mid-sized act depends on contracts the report does not rewrite. The channels Goldman calls the next structural wave are different: direct sales, fan memberships, text-message drops and presales. Hypebot notes the report highlights Bandcamp paying an average of 82% of fan spend to artists and labels, and finds direct release windows do not eat into later streaming.
Live is the other pillar. Hypebot and InterSpace both relay the report's figure that average ticket prices for the top 100 tours worldwide are up 37% since 2019. We have written about what that does to the room in our look at 2026 ticket prices and club economics, and about why the industry's superfan push has its skeptics.
So read the $198.1 billion as a map of where money will be asked for, not where it will land. A decade ago the pitch was that everyone would stream. Now, as streaming growth slows, the bank is betting that the fans who already stream will pay more, buy direct and keep buying tickets. The artists who own a real line to those fans are the ones positioned to keep a fair share of it, a point we made in showing up versus streaming.