Nielsen research provides more evidence of Latin music growth

More indications of the explosive growth in Latin music was provided by Nielsen at the Billboard Latin Music Festival last week. David Bakula, Senior Vice President, Global Product Leadership & Industry Insights, delivered a raft of rising metrics. (See  Billboard here.)

“Latin music is everywhere — this isn’t just about Hispanics, it’s about its impact on popular music as a whole. It’s not a small, niche market anymore.” –David Bakula, SVP, Nielsen

Part of the Latin music trend is connected to population trending: While 18% of the U.S population is Hispanic, that group comprises 50% of population growth. Since 85% of Latin music listening comes from Hispanic consumers according to Nielsen, those converging trends will drive increased consumption.

Bakula also noted that the Hispanic median age is 28, a whopping 10 years younger than the mean age of America’s whole population, and 15 years younger than the non-Hispanic white population.

The platform? Nielsen says 87% of Hispanic listeners streamed audio music (compared to 71% of the larger population), and 18.4% of music video streaming was Latin music, second to R&N/hip-hop. That’s video; at the same time, audio is enjoying 61% year-over-year growth.

 

 

Brad Hill