{"id":251873,"date":"2026-03-02T19:02:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T19:02:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/?p=251873"},"modified":"2026-03-03T09:47:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T09:47:29","slug":"germanys-recorded-music-business-generated-usd-2-73b-in-2025-up-just-2-3-yoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/germanys-recorded-music-business-generated-usd-2-73b-in-2025-up-just-2-3-yoy\/","title":{"rendered":"Germany’s recorded music business generated USD $2.73B in 2025 – up just 2.3% YoY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recorded music revenues in Germany rose just\u00a02.3%\u00a0year-over-year<\/span> to EUR \u20ac2.42 billion<\/b>\u00a0in 2025.<\/p>\n

That’s according to the new annual results for the market published on Thursday (February 26) by the German Music Industry Association, BVMI<\/b>.<\/p>\n

BVMI reports retail stats in Germany \u2013 i.e. the amount of money handed over by consumers at the tills, on online stores, and via their streaming subscriptions.<\/p>\n

The\u00a02.3% YoY<\/b><\/span> annual recorded music revenue growth stat posted by BVMI for 2025 marks a significant slowdown compared to the 7.2% YoY<\/b><\/span> growth reported by BVMI for 2024.<\/p>\n

The headline revenue figure of \u20ac2.42 billion<\/b> for the world’s fourth-largest music market converts to USD\u00a0$2.73 billion<\/b>\u00a0at the average annual exchange rate published by the IRS.<\/p>\n

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Music streaming was the market’s primary growth driver in 2025, with streaming revenues growing 4.1%\u00a0YoY<\/b><\/span> to\u00a0\u20ac2 billion<\/b>\u00a0($2.26 billion<\/b>).<\/p>\n

Streaming alone accounted for\u00a084.4%<\/b> of total recorded music revenues in Germany.<\/p>\n

Digital revenues (which include both streaming and downloads) grew 3.8%\u00a0YoY<\/b><\/span> to\u00a0\u20ac2.078 billion<\/b>\u00a0($2.35 billion<\/b>), accounting for\u00a085.8%<\/b>\u00a0of the total market.<\/p>\n

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Physical revenues in Germany declined 5.9% YoY<\/b><\/span>\u00a0overall to\u00a0\u20ac345 million<\/b>\u00a0($389 million<\/b>), accounting for\u00a014.2%<\/b> of total recorded music revenue.<\/p>\n

Revenues generated by physical formats in the market have fallen by more than two-thirds since 2015, when they generated \u20ac1.06 billion.<\/b><\/p>\n

Revenues generated by CDs in Germany fell\u00a011.3%\u00a0YoY<\/b> <\/span>to approximately\u00a0\u20ac175 million<\/b>\u00a0in 2025, accounting for\u00a07.2%<\/b>\u00a0of total market revenue.<\/p>\n

CDs remain the largest physical format in the market, but vinyl is closing the gap \u2014 vinyl’s share of physical revenues in the market rose to\u00a044.2%<\/b>\u00a0in 2025, up from\u00a040.5%<\/b>\u00a0in 2024.<\/p>\n

Vinyl revenues grew\u00a02.8% YoY<\/b>\u00a0<\/span>and accounted for\u00a06.3%<\/b> of total recorded music revenue.<\/p>\n

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Digging deeper into BVMI’s new stats reveals that Germany’s revenues generated by sync licensing in 2025 grew 7.2%\u00a0YoY<\/b><\/span> to\u00a0\u20ac12 million<\/b>\u00a0($13.5 million<\/b>).<\/p>\n

Neighboring rights revenues, as tracked by German industry body\u00a0GVL<\/b>, are estimated to have declined\u00a05.1%<\/b><\/span>\u00a0to\u00a0\u20ac245 million<\/b>\u00a0($276.6 million<\/b>). Final numbers for neighboring rights in 2025 aren’t in yet.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/i><\/a><\/figure>“The music market continues to develop and change rapidly.”<\/p>\n

Dr. Florian Dr\u00fccke<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Commenting on the latest results,\u00a0Dr. Florian Dr\u00fccke<\/b>, Chairman & CEO of BVMI, said: “The music market continues to develop and change rapidly, the dynamics of our industry in the area of innovative partnerships are high, and sales growth in Germany is solid in a highly competitive environment.”<\/p>\n

Dr\u00fccke also commented on what he called the “increasing penetration of AI in all industry segments”, explaining that BVMI is “particularly interested in expanding the digital licensing business based on strong copyright laws that must not be watered down”.<\/p>\n

Dr\u00fccke added: “In the current environment, it is important that we work together even more intensively to explain the profound changes in the music business,” and warned that due to the arrival of “more and more AI-generated content,” the “competition for attention is constantly increasing.”<\/p>\n

<\/div> <\/div> <\/p>\n

Germany’s\u00a02.3%<\/b>\u00a0recorded music market growth only marginally outpaced the country’s annual average inflation rate<\/a> of\u00a02.2%<\/b>\u00a0in 2025, according to the German Federal Statistical Office.<\/p>\n

It also came against the backdrop of an economy that barely grew last year: Germany’s GDP rose just\u00a00.2%<\/b><\/a>\u00a0in 2025, its first year of growth after two consecutive years of recession.<\/p>\n

Germany’s streaming growth slowdown mirrors a trend playing out across Europe’s biggest markets.<\/p>\n

In the UK, the world’s third-largest music market, total recorded music revenues grew\u00a04.2%\u00a0YoY<\/strong> <\/span>in 2025 to GBP\u00a0\u00a32.45 billion<\/b>\u00a0(USD\u00a0$3.23 billion<\/b>), according to the\u00a0Entertainment Retailers Association<\/b>\u00a0(ERA<\/b>) \u2014 though streaming subscription revenues grew just\u00a03.2%<\/b>, a rate that merely matched UK inflation.<\/p>\n

One notable divergence: UK physical music revenues surged\u00a011.5%\u00a0YoY<\/strong><\/span> to\u00a0\u00a3368.1 million<\/b>\u00a0in 2025, driven by an\u00a018.5%<\/b><\/span>\u00a0jump in vinyl revenue, while Germany’s physical market declined\u00a05.9%<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Both markets’ physical segments account for a similar percentage of total revenues \u2014\u00a015%<\/b>\u00a0in the UK,\u00a014.2%<\/b>\u00a0in Germany \u2014 but the UK’s vinyl boom is not being replicated across the channel in the world’s next-largest recorded music market.<\/p>\n

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All EUR to USD conversions in this story have been made at the average annual exchange rate for 2025 published by the IRS.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Results for the market published on Thursday (February 26) by the German Music Industry Association, BVMI<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7380,"featured_media":252068,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1118,124],"class_list":["post-251873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-bvmi","tag-de"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251873"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251873\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":252105,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251873\/revisions\/252105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicbusinessworldwide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}