Recently at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, Gracey Mae led a panel themed Local Rhythms, Global Charts: African Music’s Expanding Influence which explored the global influence and astronomical growth of the African music scene. The panel also touched on the current state of music, arts, & digital media across Africa, the relationship between African & Western music scenes, and the role of government initiatives in accelerating media & cultural development.

The panelists included:

• DJ Cuppy
• Jocelyne Muhutu-Remy (Spotify's Managing Director, Sub-Saharan Africa)
• Wale Davies (Head of A&R Africa - Sony Music Publishing)
• Jimi Adesanya (Co-founder, JM Films)

Piggybacking off Wale's acknowledgment of Spotify’s support to the Nigerian music industry beyond streaming - with events, activations, artist rollouts, and more, Jocelyne’s revelation was spurred by a question Gracey poses directly which read,

“At Spotify, we see a lot of support for African music but is there actually any money being made within our ecosystem?”

Jocelyne responds,

Yes, the growth has been phenomenal in the past 10-15 years, especially since we introduced streaming to the African continent. There were different platforms before Spotify launched in 2021 and since then it has really accelerated because we have focused on revenue, rather than just growing the numbers of users.

Last year, IFPI announced that Sub-Saharan Africa was the fastest-growing region at 34%. So, Sub-Saharan Africa is leading the world in terms of growth. In terms of Afrobeats, in the past few years, we’ve seen 500% growth and we’ve all seen the GRAMMYs, the events, and billboards on Times Square etc.

There’s no doubt that this is our moment. We‘re being empowered, we‘re taking back our story, and it’s all beautiful. However, we need to be pragmatic and realistic. Let me give you some comparisons - If you take a country like Belgium, which is the size of Burundi with a population of 11 million people, it is twice that amount [According to IFPI?]. Belgium!

And you may think that’s an established European market, there might be some good reasons as they’ve been added for years. But then there’s also Chile, an emerging market. The single country of Chile has as much revenue as the entire African continent. So, we still have a lot to do and obviously, I love that we’re conquering the world the way we’re doing it but, however, we need to conquer our own continent.

Yes, we need our users to grow and we’ve seen in the past couple of years, incredible progress in that sense. And if there’s something that I find really exciting, and the reason I wake up every morning is that there’s this perception that African consumers, given all the issues that we have - between poverty and the cost of data, etc will never be a revenue market. They say people will never be able to pay as it's too expensive but what we’re seeing is just the opposite.

There is a willingness to pay for music because there’s an appreciation of it. It’s part of our culture and when products are offered that meet the needs of people, especially in terms of payment. If you make it easy by introducing alternative payment methods, and giving people what they want in terms of how they pay; consumers are very responsive.

You can watch the full session right below:

Belgium, Chile, Africa…

Spotify is present in over 40 African countries, with Nigeria, South Africa, and Egypt emerging as frontrunners in terms of adoption. This is probably a good avenue for me to peep into these markets for light comparisons, especially as Latin America and Europe are touted as some of the leading markets in the music business.

Considering the population sizes of Belgium with 11.5 million people as at 2021; Chile with 19.4 million people, and then Nigeria alone with about 200 million people, it's jarring to see how the economics of streaming play out.

Chile ranks as the fourth-largest recorded music market in Latin America, trailing only behind Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina.

In Belgium, Spotify subscription is priced at €11.99, an equivalent of $13.06. In Chile, the current cost of Spotify subscription stands at 4550 Chilean pesos (CLP), an equivalent of $4.82. This is in stark contrast to Nigeria, where Spotify subscription is priced at 900 Nigerian naira (NGN) per month, equivalent to about $0.57. Meanwhile, in South Africa, Spotify subscription presently goes for ZAR 64.99 monthly, an equivalent of $3.46, and in Egypt, you pay EGP 49.99 monthly, an equivalent of $1.05.

Why these? Primarily due to the disparities in economic factors - simply put!!

I bet currency devaluation has been a primary contributor because if you go back to a post I did in 2021 about what Spotify costs across 100 music markets. You’ll see how Spotify was priced at an equivalent of ~$4.99/month in South Africa; ~$3.18/month in Egypt and ~$2.19/month in Nigeria. Compare these figures as at October 2021 and now, March 2024.

Whereas, in countries like Belgium, Spotify has since reviewed its subscription price up from €9.99 to €11.99 within the same period, while prices in Africa remain the same.

Now that we’ve considered the population of each region and their pricing; we should eyeball their streaming muscle in relation to their revenue contributions. Considering the number of streams generated daily on Spotify, Chile ranks 16th among the platform’s top markets as it churns out about 16 million streams per day.

Nigeria makes its way as a Top 30 market on Spotify, at 27th with about 5 million daily stream contributions. While Belgium lags slightly behind at 33rd place, with an average contribution of about 4 million streams per day on Spotify. Then there’s South Africa and Egypt at 36th and 44th place respectively, jointly contributing about 6.5 million streams daily.

You’d agree with me that these figures underscore the impact of economic factors on artists’ revenue when you consider Belgium as a single country outperforming a whole continent in revenue, without the streaming muscle to match.

Despite being a relatively new entrant compared to Chile (where Spotify launched in 2013), Belgium (where Spotify launched in 2011), South Africa & Egypt (where Spotify launched in 2018), I’ll commend Nigeria's effort to establish itself as a market leader in terms of streams generated. Spotify is present in 184 markets, so emerging as its Top 30 market in 3 years is no small feat.

I've been compiling data on what Nigerians, South Africans, and Egyptians are streaming the most on Spotify weekly, and you’ll see LIVE how Nigeria stakes its claim as a market leader in Africa [by stream count] despite the three-year headstart.

Here’s a tease (because I’m nice!! 😅) of the 10 songs (out of about 300 😮) Nigerians, South Africans, and Egyptians have streamed the most this year…so far!

Nigeria 🇳🇬

South Africa 🇿🇦

Egypt 🇪🇬

Full thing should drop after Q1! 🥳