Photo Credit: Georgi Kalaydzhiev
English-language tracks now account for an even 86% of on-demand streams in the States – a share that’s said to be “steadily eroding” amid the continued rise of Latin, K-pop, and more.
Both the percentage and the “steadily eroding” assessment come from Luminate, which framed the data as indicative of “how the U.S. music streaming market is diversifying.” But as usual, there are multiple angles from which one can consider and analyze the numbers.
At the top level, the report does identify an 86% U.S. streaming share (on-demand plays only) for English-language tracks to this point in 2026. While the percentage might seem (and, to be sure, is) high, it’s down from 88.8% in 2023, 87.5% in 2024, and 88.1% in 2025, the resource shows.
Meanwhile, Spanish-language releases’ own U.S. consumption-share percentages came in at 8.1%, 9.4%, 8.9%, and 9.5% across 2023 and 2026 YTD, respectively.
Somewhat curiously, BTS comeback aside, Korean-language tracks’ U.S. consumption share was essentially flat at 0.7% in both 2023 and 2024 as well as 1.1% in 2025 and 2026 YTD, the report shows.
This leads to a few more important points: First, plenty of tracks, dropped by BTS and many others, feature lyrics in multiple languages. Second, physical releases are a key focus in K-pop – a reality that perhaps negatively affects digital consumption despite superfans’ coordinated listening efforts.
But Latin music consumption is heavily geared towards streaming in the States and globally – to the tune of digital’s accounting for nearly 99% of Latin recorded revenue in the U.S. during 2025, according to the RIAA.
Put differently, because Latin music is streaming-dominant, Spanish-language releases have an advantage in the on-demand consumption-percentage department. And it goes without saying that Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl Halftime Show performance (plus the corresponding controversy) helped the 2026 YTD figure along.
Following these points to their logical conclusion, it’ll be interesting to see how the full-year 2026 percentage stacks up against its 2027 counterpart.
Finally, Luminate also shed light on data that’s said to represent global acts’ continued rise in the American market.
Between 2025 and 2026 YTD, U.K.-based artists’ share of on-demand U.S. streams rose from 7% to 7.8%, compared to slips for Mexico (5.1% to 5%), Canada (4.7% to 4.5%), and South Korea (1.9% to 1.8%), the report shows.
However, in keeping with Spanish-language tracks’ consumption percentage, Puerto Rico’s share of U.S. on-demand streams rose from 2.6% in 2025 to 3.1% in the current year, according to the analysis.
Of course, Puerto Rico, population 3.2 million, is a U.S. territory – a fact worth keeping in mind because the relevant country of origin chart is said to exclude the States altogether.