Indian Artists Are Reaching More Global Fans Than Ever Before (and the Data Proves It)

In March this year, Spotify unveiled its annual Loud & Clear report, a transparent look at how the streaming economy continues to support artists and fuel the music industry’s explosive growth. The report details how artists earn money through streaming, clarifies royalty distribution, and highlights the evolving music landscape. 

Globally, Spotify continues to lead the music industry in payouts, with more than $10 billion distributed in music royalties in 2024 alone. Payouts have increased tenfold over the past decade, and the company has now paid out approximately $60 billion since its inception. 

Taking a closer look at India, where Spotify launched just over six years ago, the growth of its artists—and music industry at large—continues upward not just locally, but worldwide.

Spotify streams of Indian artists have skyrocketed by more than 2,000% in international markets between 2019 and 2023. In 2024, artists from India were discovered more than 11.2 billion times by first-time listeners on Spotify, an increase of 13% year over year. 

Through artist education initiatives, emerging artist programs, on-ground experiences, and more, we’ve worked to connect artists and their fans more deeply than ever. The success of Indian artists on our platform, highlighted in key insights of this year’s Loud & Clear report, underscores these efforts.

Spotify is contributing to the artist economy in India

Since 2022, the number of Indian artists generating more than INR 5 million in royalties from Spotify alone has more than doubled. During the same period, Indian artists generating more than INR 10 million in royalties from our platform alone have more than tripled, and those generating over INR 50 million in royalties have doubled. In fact, approximately two-thirds of the royalties generated in India in 2024 came from Indian artists. 

More than 90% of the tracks that were featured on Spotify India’s daily Top 50 playlist in 2024 were by local artists. 

Global listeners are discovering more Indian artists than ever on Spotify

Close to 50% of all royalties generated by Indian artists on Spotify in 2024 were from listeners outside of India, with more than 9,000 Indian artists added to global and local editorial playlists on Spotify in that time. 

The U.S., U.K., UAE, Pakistan, Canada, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka are a few of the countries where Indian-language songs were most streamed last year, with the most exported being:

1. “Big Dawgs” – Hanumankind, Kalmi
2. “Akhiyaan Gulaab” (from Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya) – Mitraz
3. “Naina” (from Crew) – Badshah, Diljit Dosanjh, Raj Ranjodh
4. “Sajni” (from Laapataa Ladies) – Arijit Singh, Prashant Pandey, Ram Sampath
5. “Tauba Tauba” – Karan Aujla

India exports hits in multiple genres and languages on Spotify

Royalties generated by Indian artists performing in Hindi, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu have each more than doubled since 2021. In addition, music performed in Telugu was one of the fastest-growing segments in 2024, as its global royalties increased 39% year over year. 

Songs performed in these languages are represented across some of the most-streamed Indian genres, including Hindi pop, Hindi hip-hop, Punjabi hip-hop, Hindi indie, Malayalam hip-hop, Punjabi pop, and Tamil pop. This intersection is also reflected in the list of India’s most-exported artists on Spotify:

1. Arijit Singh
2. Pritam
3. Anirudh Ravichander
4. Karan Aujla
5. Shreya Ghoshal
6. Diljit Dosanjh
7. Hanumankind
8. Kalmi
9. A.R. Rahman
10. Sidhu Moose Wala