Telugu Music Royalties on Spotify Grew Over 120%

New Delhi, 8 September, 2026: Royalties generated by Indian artists on Spotify grew 29% in 2025 - with every major Indian language contributing to that growth. Telugu royalties surged over 120% year-on-year. Marathi rose nearly 50%. Bengali nearly 40%. From Haryanvi to Malayalam, streaming is converting India's linguistic diversity into real and growing income for artists across the country. The data comes from Spotify's annual Loud & Clear report, which this year tracks how more than $11 billion in global music royalties were distributed by Spotify in 2025 - bringing the platform's all-time total to nearly $70 billion.

In 2025, listeners globally pressed play on an Indian artist they'd never heard before - 12.8 billion times. That's 14% more than the year before. Indian music - across languages and genres - is finding audiences at a pace that few cultural exports anywhere in the world can match. That discovery is translating into deeper listening - Indian artists were streamed nearly 335 billion times on Spotify last year, adding up to over 20 billion hours of music.

Royalties generated by Indian artists on Spotify grew 29% year-on-year in 2025. In fact, the number of artists generating over INR 10 million annually grew 21% year-on-year. The number earning over INR 50 million has more than doubled since 2023. The growth isn't concentrated at the top  -  it's spreading across the artist base, across languages, and across genres.

In 2025, 90% of the tracks on Spotify India's Daily Top 50 were by Indian artists. I-Pop or popular Indian music released outside of film soundtracks accounted for half of Spotify's 2025 year-end top ten in India, with hits from Aditya Rikhari, Kushagra, Anuv Jain, Faheem Abdullah, and Jasleen Royal charting alongside the country's biggest film soundtracks. Notably, Rikhari’s independent track “Sahiba” made history in 2025 by holding the number one spot on Spotify India for over 11 consecutive weeks.

Speaking about his journey, artist Aditya Rikhari said: “Streaming changed the scale of what was possible for me as an independent artist. Songs that started from a very personal place were able to travel to listeners across the country, sometimes long after they were released. Spotify’s discovery tools, in particular, helped my music reach a much wider set of listeners, many of whom went on to genuinely connect with and love the songs. I believe the ecosystem will only keep evolving for the better for people who are trying to build careers as musicians in India, especially with partners like Spotify supporting that journey. So to every fan of mine who aspires to become a musician - just put your music out. You never know where it might travel."