Canada Was the Number Three Exporter of Music In The World in 2024

Canada is the third biggest exporter of music to the world.

That's according to the inaugural "export power" ranking in Luminate's 2024 year-end report. The music data tracking company, which also tabulates Billboard's charts, defines export power as "a country’s ability to export recorded music globally."

Canada is behind only the U.S. and the U.K., which hold the top two spots on the export power ranking. Canada's top importers of music are the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, while Canada is also the number one importer of music from the U.S., emphasizing the entwined nature of Canadian and American markets.

The rest of the top ten is rounded out by South Korea, Germany, France, Puerto Rico, Australia, Sweden and Brazil.

Canadian Stream Shares Declining

While that might seem like good news for Canadian music, the report also includes some indicators that Canada is not in a growth period for exporting music.

When it comes to the share of global premium (audio and video) streams, Canada saw the third largest decline last year, with its share down from 3.73% to 3.34%, also behind the U.S. and U.K. Mexico, Brazil and India had the biggest stream share growth.

That points to a trend where music from the global south — and in languages other than English — is seeing a major explosion in popularity.

The report also highlights that English and non-English-language countries are showing different trends when it comes to local vs. foreign content.

"English-speaking markets are losing local share to non-English language imports," the report states, "while many non-English speaking markets show local content gaining share."

That provides further evidence that non-English language music is on the rise across the board. In the U.S., Mexico and Chile (and, surprisingly, Ireland) had the biggest stream share gains, while Canada, the U.S. and Nigeria saw the biggest stream share declines. Canada also saw some of the highest stream share declines in the U.K., Australia, Japan and Brazil.

High Notes From The Weeknd and Tate McRae

Canadian songwriters, however, are going strong, thanks in part to a few of pop's biggest stars.

Canada ranks third for songwriter representation among 2024's top 1000 most-streamed songs, again behind the U.S. and the U.K.

The Weeknd is a big reason for that position, ranking third amongst the most prolific and the most-streamed songwriters in the top 1000 streamed songs.

Pop comes out as the fastest-growing genre in the U.S., followed by rock, Latin music and country. That growth is led by a big year for women pop singers like Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter — and Canada's Tate McRae, who places at No. 9 on Luminate's Pop Artist Rank for the U.S.

Looking beyond the biggest stars and most-streamed songs, Luminate notes that the share of streaming occurring outside the top 10,000 tracks is continuing to grow. In 2024, the top 10,000 tracks made up 31.9% of global streaming, down from 40.1% in 2022.

Canadian Album Consumption and Streaming Are Up

Shifting to look at consumption within Canada, Luminate finds that total album consumption is up by 8.1%, from 104.4 million units in 2023 to 112.9 million. That growth comes from both streaming, which is up 9.5%, and physical sales, up 4.8%. Total album sales fell by 0.9%, indicating a drop in digital sales.

Check out the full Canadian metrics, as well as more worldwide data, in the whole report here, and more highlights from the U.S. data here.