Latin music is the fifth-largest genre in the United States, accounting for approximately one in 12 audio streams, according to Luminate. Listening continues to grow as the genre closes the gap with country.
Luminate chief executive Rob Jonas presented the figures on October 19 in Miami during “By the Numbers: The State of Spanish Language Music Worldwide.” The figures came from the presentation.
Luminate measures music consumption using more than 700 verified streaming and sales sources across 60 countries.
Streaming growth and language share
US Latin audio streams have increased around 3% so far this year. Jonas said growth had slowed alongside the broader market, but Latin continued to gain on country, the fourth-largest genre.
Rhythm and blues (R&B)/hip-hop, rock and pop rank ahead of country. Latin has been the fastest-growing US genre over the past five years, according to Jonas.
Spanish has matched its record share, accounting for almost one in ten streams of the most popular songs in the US. English-language music has fallen to a new low of around 87% of US streaming.
Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl performance in February helped Latin music achieve its biggest streaming week on record, Jonas said.
More Latin artists in the top 500
The number of Latin artists in the US top 500 has more than doubled since 2020, with the strongest gains concentrated in the lower half of that ranking:
- 55 Latin artists in the top 500, compared with 23 in 2020.
- 37 between positions 251 and 500, compared with 13 in 2020.
- Seven in the top 100, compared with 11 in 2023.
Globally, Bad Bunny holds the top five positions among the most-streamed Latin songs. “DtMF” leads with 1,250 million streams.
Fan engagement and spending
Jonas said Latin music listeners exceed the average US music fan at every level of engagement, with almost one in three classified as a superfan.
“A superfan doesn’t just stream: they buy the vinyl, travel to the concert and pay for the premium experience,” he explained.
More than half of US listeners hear Latin music each month, Jonas added. These fans “subscribe more, buy more,” creating opportunities for premium tiers, VIP experiences and direct merchandise sales.
AI listening and market revenue
The most-streamed Latin song made or assisted by artificial intelligence (AI) in 2026 through September has almost 34 million streams. Every other song on that list exceeds 14 million.
Nearly three-quarters of the streams for those songs came from outside the US.
“Music made with AI is already competing for the same listeners on the same platforms,” Jonas said.
Latin music generated 542 million dollars in the US during the first half of the year. Luminate had also measured the growing share of catalog music in Spotify’s global Top 200.
