Foreign music giants dominate Nigerian streaming, 68% market share

Global music distributors Empire, Sony, and Universal Music Group captured 68% of Nigeria's 2025 streaming volume, with Empire leading at 1.2 billion streams (32.88% of Spotify consumption). Empire's partnerships with labels like Dangbana Republik drove its lead, while Universal (786.4M streams) and Sony (541.8M) followed. This dominance reflects Nigeria's music industry infrastructure gap, where foreign entities provide corporate structure lacking in local labels. Nigerian artists earned ₦58 billion ($41.48M) on Spotify in 2025, but piracy and high entry costs persist. The industry's $1.03B projected 2033 valuation hinges on global distributors evolving from talent beneficiaries to local infrastructure enablers.

SOURCE: https://techcabal.com/2026/03/10/nigerias-2025-music-streaming/