What are the top music markets in the world? And where does Canada rank these days?

The IFPI, the organization that represents the global recorded music industry, released its annual report recently. There’s a staggering amount of data in the report which covers 62 countries, but I waded through it so you don’t have to.

One of the things that this report does is rank countries in terms of the size of their music market. Here’s the current leaderboard.

1. US: No surprise here. The American market grew 4.8% last year. Revenue was above US$10 billion (CAD$13.71 billion). The American market has never been bigger.
2. Japan: A perennial number two. Year-over-year growth of 5.4%.
3. UK: Again, no change in ranking from last 2021. Up by 5.4%.
4. Germany: Same as 2021. Up by 2.2%.
5. China: This is new. China has leapt ahead of France. Revenues jumped a staggering 28.4%. It’s a top five market for the first time.
6. France: Revenues jumped by a healthy 7.7%, but that wasn’t enough to keep China from passing France.
7. South Korea: The power of K-pop.
8. Canada: We were eighth last year and eighth again this year. Growth was 8.1%–which, as you’ll note, is higher than what the US saw. In raw numbers, our music market was worth CAD$834.23 million or US$608.5 million.
9. Brazil: The Latin American market as a whole grew by 25.9% in 2021. That was enough to push Brazil back into the top 10.
10. Australia: A good year down under with growth of 8.1%. Still, they were nudged down a rank by Brazil.

Other interesting notes:

• Asia accounted for half (49.8%) of all physical music sales.
• Sub-Saharan Africa had the greatest growth with34.7%.
• Streaming revenues in Canada popped 10.1%. Subscription revenues are up 8.4% while ad-supported streaming revenue moved up by 16.1%.
• Vinyl sales in Canada were up 6.5%. We spent $92.93 million on physical records.
• Canada has two performers in the top 10. Taylor Swift and BTS were 1-2 with Drake finishing third. The Weeknd is in fifth place.
• The top song of 2022 was “As It Was” from Harry Styles with 2.2 billion streams globally.

If you want the entire report, go here.