the British phonographic industry (BPI), a UK-based music industry trade organization, reported a 5.7% increase in the number of songs being streamed in 2021. This represents a sharp decline in growth from previous years .

In 2021, 147.2 billion songs were streamed in the UK market. In 2020, 139.9 billion were released, marking a jump of 7.9 billion in 2021. While that number seems a lot, it actually represents much lower growth than in previous years.

For example, 2020 saw a growth of 25.1 billion additional flows compared to 2019. In 2019, the growth was 23.3 billion. In fact, the growth of $ 7.9 billion in 2021 is the weakest since 2015. From 2017 to 2020, growth has steadily remained above $ 20 billion.

One thing to keep in mind is that these numbers represent the volume of songs played, not the revenue. Streaming revenue figures have yet to be released. They will be released later this week by the Entertainment Retailers Association (TIME). Revenue numbers may not correlate directly with volume numbers, as some flows are from free accounts versus others from paid accounts.

Another factor to consider when reviewing these numbers is how the BPI obtains its data. Every week UK charts with streaming figures are released. The BPI bases its figures on these.

Due to the 2021 structure, there were 52 “chart weeks”. In 2020, however, there were 53 chart weeks, meaning 2020 was slightly favored. Even taking this into account (that is, if 2021 had 53 chart weeks), the growth figure would still have been $ 9.9 billion.