Barclays sees music streaming growth narrow gap with Spotify

Barclays has reported that music streaming growth has narrowed the performance gap with Spotify. In the second quarter of 2026, the average growth rate for major music companies was 8.3%. Warner Music Group led the sector with an 11.3% growth rate, followed by Sony Music Group at 9.7% and Universal Music Group at 5.6%. This marked a significant improvement compared to the previous period, when the gap between these companies and Spotify was an all-time high of 17 percentage points in the second quarter of 2024.

However, the gap has still remained the widest in the last six quarters, standing at 7 percentage points.

Spotify, on the other hand, recorded a 14.6% growth rate during the same period. Universal Music Group's streaming growth of 6.7% was largely driven by a 3.5 percentage point boost from its new pricing strategy, known as streaming 2.0. However, this growth was affected by a 1.5 percentage point drag from market share and a 1.0 percentage point drag from revenue recognition.

Warner Music Group cited a 3.5 percentage point pricing impact from their new deals in the second quarter, which contributed to their 11.8% growth rate in subscription streaming. They also benefited from positive market-share trends exceeding 1%. Warner Music Group's volume growth for the second quarter was 7%, while Universal Music Group experienced a 6% growth.

For the third quarter of 2026, Barclays has forecasted Spotify's revenues at €5.0 billion, with a 200 basis point tailwind from foreign exchange, resulting in a 17.0% reported revenue growth and 15.0% constant currency growth. Barclays has also predicted Universal Music Group's streaming growth for the same period at 8.1%, comprising 10.0% subscription streaming and 1.5% non-subscription streaming.