The 2026 Electronic Music Business Report: What It Means for DJs, Promoters & Labels
Dance music made $15.1bn in 2025, up 7%. Tech house still rules, Afro house has arrived, the BPMs are climbing and AI tools are now a $333m business. Here’s what the IMS Business Report 2025/26 actually means if you DJ, promote or run a label.
In this guide
- The short version
- What this means for DJs, promoters and labels
- A $15.1bn industry, up 7%
- Genres: tech house holds, Afro house surges, everything gets faster
- Where electronic music is listened to
- AI music tools: 651% growth in two years
- Live, Ibiza and catalogue deals
- Female DJs and the UK charts
- Electronic music industry FAQ
The short version
- The global electronic music business hit $15.1bn in 2025, up 7% on 2024’s $14.2bn.
- Tech house has held #1 on Beatport for four years running. Afro house jumped from 10th to 2nd on Splice in two years.
- Music is getting harder and faster: Schranz uploads on SoundCloud grew 83% in 2025.
- AI music tools grew revenue 651% in two years, to $333m and 63 million monthly users.
- Direct-to-fan is the fastest-growing slice of the wider industry. If you don’t own your audience, you’re missing it.
The IMS Electronic Music Business Report 2025/26 is out, written for the 4th year running by Mark Mulligan at MIDiA Research. It’s the 12th edition, and most of the lines are pointing up.
Below is the data that matters, and what to do with it.
What this means for DJs, promoters and labels
The numbers are eye-catching, but what actually matters if you’re booking talent, running a night or managing a roster is where the growth is coming from, and where it isn’t.
- Booking fees are underpinned by real growth, not hype. With live revenue holding steady even as some venues close, promoters have more headroom to negotiate fair fees and multi-year deals with the artists actually driving ticket sales.
- Tech house and Afro house dominance shapes lineup strategy. If your bookings or nights lean into these sounds, you’re aligned with where audience demand is growing fastest. Reflect that in how you market a lineup, not just who’s on it.
- Direct-to-fan revenue is now the fastest-growing segment. Labels and artists who haven’t built an owned audience (email, community, direct sales) are leaving the fastest-growing slice of the pie on the table.
- AI music tools are no longer a side conversation. A $333m, 63-million-user category in two years means AI-assisted production and marketing workflows are now mainstream. Budget for them rather than dismissing them.
If you’re a DJ, agency or label trying to translate industry-level data like this into an actual booking, marketing or content strategy, that’s exactly the kind of work we do at WEBKANDY. Get in touch if you want a second pair of eyes on it.
A $15.1bn industry, up 7%
The global electronic music business pulled in $15.1bn in 2025, against $14.2bn in 2024. Growth was 7%, slightly above 2024’s 6%.
Almost every segment grew: labels, publishers, DSPs, merch, sponsorship, hardware. Live and creator tools were the only soft spots, dragged by venue closures and AI disruption respectively.
| Metric | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Electronic music business | $15.1bn, up 7% (2024: $14.2bn) |
| Wider recorded music industry | $39bn, up 9%, with streaming making up $24bn |
| Expanded rights (D2C, merch, commerce) | Fastest-growing segment overall, up 21% |
| Leading live music companies | $30bn, up 10%, more than double 2019 |
| AI music tools | $333m, 63 million monthly users |
| Ibiza club ticketing | €160m, up €10m |
Expanded rights, where labels run their own D2C, merch and commerce, grew faster than anything else. Selling things directly to fans is now where the money is.
Genres: tech house holds, Afro house surges, everything gets faster
Tech house: four years at the top of Beatport
Tech house has held #1 on Beatport since 2022. House has held #2 just as long. The action this year was further down the chart. The 2025 Beatport top 10:
| Rank | Genre |
|---|---|
| #1 | Tech house |
| #2 | House |
| #3 | Melodic house and techno |
| #4 | Drum and bass |
| #5 | Techno (peak / driving) |
| #6 | Dance / Pop |
| #7 | Afro house |
| #8 | Deep house |
| #9 | Minimal / Deep tech |
| #10 | Progressive house |
Melodic house and techno climbed to #3. Drum and bass dropped to #4. Afro house sits at #7 on Beatport, but the picture on Splice is very different.
34% of Beatport sales now come from outside the top 10, up from 33% in 2024. The long tail keeps growing.
Afro house: from 10th to 2nd on Splice in two years
The Splice search data is where you can see the genre actually moving.
Afro house went from 10th place in 2023 to 2nd in 2025, with searches up 82% year on year.
Trap held #1 with 1.4 million searches. Reggaeton broke into the top 10 for the first time at #8. Drill fell out of the top 10 entirely.
If you produce, this is the chart that tells you what other producers are loading up. By that measure, Afro house is the story of 2025.
SoundCloud got harder and faster
The share of hardstyle, hardcore and hardtekk tracks above 180 BPM has risen every year for three years. Schranz, the German hard techno style, is having a real moment: uploads grew 83% in 2025.
The fastest-growing electronic scenes on SoundCloud globally are mostly regional, and mostly outside the West:
- Indonesian breakbeat
- Vinahouse
- South Korean EDM
- Colombian guaracha
- Minimal / tech house
MIDiA’s read is that music tends to harden when global conditions feel unstable. Given where we are right now, expect 2026 to keep getting faster.
Where electronic music is listened to
Germany still leads
Germany has the most Spotify monthly listeners for electronic music, with 604 million (cumulative listens, not unique people). The US is second. Australia, the UK and the Netherlands all have monthly electronic listeners more than five times their total population, which makes them strongholds for the genre.
Indonesia is the breakout
Indonesia had the biggest growth in 2025: electronic Spotify monthly listeners up 77%. Mexico went the other way, falling 34% and dropping from 5th to 12th. Spain grew 5% but slipped from 12th to 13th.
Across the top 13 markets, electronic music ranks 1st or 2nd by Spotify monthly listeners in 10 of them. Mexico is the only outlier, with Latin at #1 and electronic at #4. The Latin “global” trend is mostly a Spanish-speaking regional one: three top markets account for 3.9 billion of its listeners.
AI music tools: 651% growth in two years
Generative AI and stem separation tools grew revenue 651% from 2023 to 2025. The 2025 total is $333m, with 63 million monthly active users. Traditional music software (excluding DAWs) declined over the same period.
The bigger story is on the consumer side. About half of all listeners now do some kind of music creation activity:
- Singing: 20%
- Playing an instrument: 15%
- Watching how-to videos: 12%
- Playing guitar: 11%
- Started learning an instrument in the past 12 months: 6%
- Bought music-making software: 5%
- Identify as DJs: 2%
For a genre built by bedroom producers, the AI shift is going to land harder here than almost anywhere else.
Live, Ibiza and catalogue deals
Live: $30bn, double what it was in 2019
The leading live music companies brought in $30bn in 2025. Live grew 10% in 2025, up from 5% in 2024, and total live revenue is now more than double the 2019 pre-Covid figure.
US ticket sales fell in 2025 while average ticket prices rose. Live’s growth is being driven by price, with volume going the other way. Anyone who’s looked at a festival ticket lately already knew that.
Ibiza club ticketing: €160m
Ibiza club ticketing revenue hit €160m in 2025, up €10m on 2024. That’s ticketing only: VIP and bottle spend isn’t included.
Average events per venue dropped from 153 in 2022 to 140 in 2025, while revenue per event has risen. Venues are doing fewer nights, with bigger production, at higher prices. The model has shifted, and the island’s economy is still climbing.
Catalogue deals: 18% were for electronic artists
18% of publicly announced music catalogue acquisitions in 2025 were for electronic artists. Q1 2026 already had 17 announced deals.
The average year of all acquired catalogues across the industry is 1990. For electronic catalogues specifically, it’s 2005. Newer catalogues have more streaming runway ahead of them, which is why the smart money is paying attention.
Recent electronic deals include Tiga, Mixmash Records, deadmau5, Mau5trap, Pack., !K7, Monstercat, MBMB Publishing, Cr2 Records, A-Trak and Axtone Records: a mix of household names and serious back catalogues.
Female DJs and the UK charts
Female DJs: 15% of registered AlphaTheta accounts
Female DJs were 15% of registered AlphaTheta accounts in 2025, up from 14% in 2024 and 13% in 2023.
Female headliner slots have grown faster than the underlying user base. The pace at the top is moving; the pace at the base is one percentage point a year. At that rate, real parity is decades away. The industry has more work to do.
UK charts: 10% share, but only 7 dance tracks in the top 100
Dance music’s share of the UK singles market held at 10% in 2025. The albums share held at 4%. Both have been steady for three years.
The number of dance tracks in the year-end UK top 100 fell from 12 to 7. Chrystal’s “The Days” was the top dance performer at #12.
Steady share with fewer top-100 hits says the audience hasn’t shrunk. It’s listening across more tracks instead of concentrating on a handful of crossover singles. The chart is becoming less of a useful read on what’s actually moving on the floor.
Source: IMS Electronic Music Business Report 2025/26 by Mark Mulligan / MIDiA Research. Full report at internationalmusicsummit.com.
Electronic music industry FAQ
How big is the electronic music industry in 2026?
According to the IMS Business Report 2025/26, the global electronic music business was worth $15.1bn in 2025, up 7% from $14.2bn in 2024.
What is the most popular electronic music genre?
Tech house, which has held #1 on Beatport since 2022. House is #2 and melodic house and techno climbed to #3 in 2025.
Which electronic genre is growing fastest?
Afro house. It rose from 10th to 2nd in Splice searches between 2023 and 2025, with searches up 82% year on year.
How big is the AI music tools market?
Generative AI and stem separation tools made $333m in 2025, with 63 million monthly active users, after 651% revenue growth since 2023.
Turn industry data into a growth plan
WEBKANDY is a leading electronic music growth agency working with music industry clients. Past work includes Defected Records, Paharas Musica, Nervous Records, Onit Bookings DJ Agency and TuneCutter.
