Spotify Report Shows Indian Artists Surging Worldwide
India’s music streaming economy posted its strongest growth yet in 2025, according to Spotify’s latest Loud & Clear report, which found that royalties generated by Indian artists on the platform rose 29% year over year. The report, released this week, credits the surge to gains across nearly every major Indian language and a widening pool of artists earning substantial income from streaming.
The number of Indian artists generating more than 10 million rupees annually climbed 21% compared with the previous year, while those crossing the 50 million rupee threshold have doubled since 2023. Spotify said listeners streamed Indian artists nearly 335 billion times in 2025, translating to more than 20 billion hours of listening. Notably, 12.8 billion of those streams came from listeners discovering an Indian artist for the first time, pointing to expanding reach beyond established fan bases.
Independent artists, operating outside the traditional Bollywood film pipeline, accounted for a growing share of that success. Half of Spotify’s year-end top 10 chart in India in 2025 came from what the platform calls “I-Pop,” or independently released Indian music. Singer Aditya Rikhari’s track “Sahiba” spent more than 11 consecutive weeks at number one on Spotify in India, while artists such as Anuv Jain, Faheem Abdullah and Jasleen Royal also charted prominently. Regional languages also saw sharp increases in royalty generation, with Telugu up more than 120%, Marathi nearly 50%, Bengali close to 40%, and Malayalam and Hindi both posting double-digit gains. Haryanvi-language streams grew nearly sevenfold between February 2023 and February 2026.
International listening is also fueling the growth. More than 40% of royalties earned by Indian artists last year came from audiences outside the country. Tamil-language releases performed especially well abroad, with Anirudh Ravichander’s soundtrack for “Coolie” surpassing 100 million streams within ten days and earning a billboard placement in New York’s Times Square. Rapper Hanumankind’s track “Big Dawgs” reached 360 million streams and topped a Spotify global chart, while women artists saw local streams grow 27% year over year.
The findings align with broader trends reshaping the global music industry, where streaming platforms have increasingly displaced traditional distribution models built around film studios, record labels and regional broadcasters. Markets once considered secondary to English-language pop have become significant revenue drivers, prompting platforms to invest in language-specific playlists, editorial teams and discovery algorithms designed to surface local talent to both domestic and international audiences.
Industry analysts have pointed to India as one of the fastest-growing streaming markets globally, driven by rising smartphone penetration, cheaper data plans and a young, digitally native population. The shift has also lowered barriers for independent musicians who previously depended on film studios or major labels for distribution, allowing artists to build audiences directly through digital platforms without traditional gatekeepers.
Spotify has also expanded its RADAR artist-development program, which supports emerging talent, into Malayalam this year following earlier rollouts in Punjabi and Tamil, signaling continued investment in regional-language growth.
This report was detailed in a Spotify newsroom announcement.
