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Ricky Martin’s late-1990s crossover made Latin pop a conspicuous presence in the U.S. mainstream, but it is not a complete explanation for the stars who followed. The clearest current evidence of Latin music’s reach comes from two different measures: Latin America’s recorded-music market has grown rapidly, and Bad Bunny has placed near the top of IFPI’s global charts. Neither measure, on its own, tells the full cultural or historical story.
What the latest figures say about Latin music’s rise
In 2024, recorded-music revenues in Latin America grew 22.5%, the region’s fifteenth consecutive year of growth, according to IFPI’s 2025 Global Music Report announcement. That was substantially faster than global recorded-music revenue growth of 4.8% in the same year.
These figures describe the recorded-music business in a region; they do not count Latin artists, measure their popularity abroad, or quantify cultural influence. They do, however, show that Latin America has become an increasingly important and expanding market for recorded music.
Streaming is central to the regional business
Streaming accounted for 87.8% of Latin America’s recorded-music revenues in 2024, compared with 69.0% of recorded-music revenues worldwide, IFPI reported. The organization also counted 752 million paid subscription accounts globally at the end of 2024. These are revenue and account measures, not a count of listeners or proof that streaming alone produced any artist’s international success.
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The trend is not limited to one year. IFPI reported that Latin America’s recorded-music revenues rose 19.4% in 2023, marking a fourteenth consecutive annual increase; streaming represented 86.3% of regional revenue that year. The 2023 figures appear in IFPI’s 2024 report announcement. IFPI notes that local-currency values use annual exchange rates and that historical market values may be restated as exchange rates change.
Bad Bunny shows what global chart reach looks like now
Latin stars’ contemporary prominence is also visible in IFPI’s global charts. In IFPI’s 2025 rankings, published in 2026, Bad Bunny was fifth among global recording artists. His album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS placed fourth in IFPI’s global album chart and second in its global streaming album chart. The rankings and categories are listed on IFPI’s Global Charts page.
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These placements establish strong performance within the named global rankings; they do not explain how the artist reached that position or stand in for every dimension of influence. They also should not be confused with the regional revenue figures: one set describes market income, while the other ranks artist and album performance under chart methodologies.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Beyond Ricky Martin: what the evidence can and cannot establish
Ricky Martin is a useful entry point for a story about Latin pop’s late-1990s visibility, but the available figures do not establish a direct historical chain from his success to Bad Bunny’s. Nor do they settle the relative contributions of particular genres, labels, audiences, or digital platforms. A credible account of that longer chronology needs dated evidence for each milestone rather than a single-cause narrative.
The scale of the present-day market is not uniquely Latin American. In IFPI’s 2023 report, the organization attributed global growth across markets, regions, and recorded-music formats to a “truly global and diverse industry.” The statement came from John Nolan, IFPI’s Chief Financial Officer and Interim Joint Head, and referred to the wider recorded-music industry, not specifically to Latin stars.
“Latin music” also names a broad range of artists and sounds rather than one uniform style. Revenue growth and global chart positions are meaningful signs of commercial reach, but they cannot by themselves describe that diversity or determine what the music means to different listeners.
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