{
  "id": 2401100,
  "title": "Barclays sees music streaming growth narrow gap with Spotify",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/21/barclays-sees-music-streaming-growth-narrow-gap-with-spotify",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-08-21T16:05:31.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Investing.com",
    "slug": "investing-com",
    "url": "https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/barclays-sees-music-streaming-growth-narrow-gap-with-spotify-93CH-4871938"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "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.\n\nSpotify, 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.\n\nWarner 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.\n\nFor 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.",
  "summary": null,
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}