Author of Tarzan Economics and former chief economist at Spotify, Page sets out his projections in Foundations for Success: Saudi Arabia’s Music Industry, a report commissioned by the Saudi Music Commission.
Launched at the Cultural Investment Conference 2025 (CIC), the study outlines a structured route to that half-billion-dollar milestone and positions music as a sector capable of delivering reliable returns for creators, investors, and the state.
The work is a continuation of a long musical story in the Kingdom. As Saudi Music Commission CEO Paul Pacifico told the CIC, the Commission’s role is “to take an art form in music that has deep, deep roots here in the Kingdom… and, for the first time, to structure a commercial sector and a talent development pipeline around it.” Page’s report provides the numerical foundations for that progression.
Saudi Arabia already has the ingredients for its recorded music industry to succeed, the report reveals. It highlights three anchors – half the population is under 35, around one third carry iPhones, and the majority use YouTube – and concludes that demand for recorded music already outstrips supply.
The report says 28 million people – or 73 per cent of the Kingdom’s 36.3 million population – are deemed addressable for digital music services. Within that group, around 25 million people – 95 per cent of the addressable population – use YouTube daily. The iPhone population is estimated at 10.8 million, and there are nearly 5 million “qualifying households” with at least one potential paying user. Against those numbers, the report identifies almost 3 million current music users, of whom just over 1 million are already paying subscribers.
In other words, the report is not speculating about whether demand exists; it is describing a market where digital engagement and device penetration already form a substantial platform for growth.
The route to $0.5 billion is based on Saudi Arabia emulating Turkey’s success in converting music lovers into paying subscribers – a reasonable comparison, notes Page, owing to Egypt’s relative success commercially and culturally, and its regional proximity. Page forecasts that by the time the 2034 World Cup arrives, the Kingdom could have 13.5 million music users, of whom 8.7 million would be paying subscribers. On that basis, he calculates that by 2034, the Kingdom would be in the global top 20 music markets, on a par with countries such as Sweden today.
The modelling behind that figure uses average revenue per user across free and paid tiers, then adds in publishing flows, streaming-service margins and value-added tax to build a bottom-up picture of the recorded-music value chain.
The Royal Diriyah Opera House by The Diriyah Company and The Royal Commission for Riyadh City. Image: Supplied
Page’s comparative pricing analysis shows that music subscription prices in Saudi Arabia are lower than in markets with similar economic profiles, suggesting room to adjust over time as the ecosystem develops. While the report does not prescribe a specific increase, it underlines that pricing is one of the levers available to strengthen returns to creators and rights holders.
To reach this milestone figure requires investment in the music ecosystem. The Music Commission is requesting around half a billion SAR over a decade to support further development of the recorded-music sector. But the investment would produce a 3:1 return, according to Page’s report. It forecasts cumulative tax revenues of around 1.8 billion SAR by 2034 – more than triple the amount invested.
As Page told the CIC, the goal is a “three-for-one ratio in terms of tax return coming back, given what the government would have to put in to makthis market work.” With VAT already applied to streaming, recorded music becomes a contributor to tax revenues as well as to cultural life.
The report then explores how much of that half billion-dollar market could remain with Saudi labels and publishers. To answer this question, it looks to Egypt, where local artists represent a small share of total artist numbers but a very significant share of domestic streams.
Using that pattern as a reference, Page concludes that, if Saudi artists achieve a similar level of domestic prominence, more than SAR400 million could flow back to local rightsholders by 2034. The report notes that this is a gross figure, before collection costs, and underlines the importance of collective management infrastructure to administer authors’ rights effectively.
Recorded music is only part of the story. Drawing on external research by renowned research organisation the Center for Music Ecosystems (CME) and additional modelling, the report estimates that Saudi Arabia’s live music industry is currently worth around $700 million, based on both a share of the broader entertainment and amusement market, and comparison with stadiums and festivals in the UK. Assuming compound annual growth of around 10 per cent, this would take live music in the Kingdom to around $1.8 billion by 2034.
As Pacifico told the CIC, when live music projections are layered on top of the recorded-music forecast, “that takes us from half a billion dollars to something like $2.5 billion by 2034.”
The CME framework is explored in the final section of the report. It proposes economic multipliers of 1.3 for recorded music and 1.5 for live, reflecting direct, indirect, and induced effects of music activity. Applying those multipliers to the 2034 forecasts, the combined recorded-and-live music sector in Saudi Arabia would generate around $3.4 billion in that single year when its wider economic impact is taken into account.
The remaining question is how to convert this potential into a sustainable, investable ecosystem. Page told CIC delegates: “Fix the supply side: more artists, recording more songs, delivering them onto more stream platforms will list more paying subscribers. If you look at Egypt, about one in every $2 in Egypt stays in Egypt. That’s power of their Egyptian music industry. There’s a great benchmark for Saudi to try and emulate what Egypt has today.”
And Pacifico added: “Our job as the Music Commission is to put in place the enablers to connect the dots, and I see that as us acting as a lens to focus and make sure that we’re delivering both the easy wins, but also the hard yards that are needed to really develop a sustainable sector for generations to come.”
He described the current music landscape as “a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing,” but stressed these missing elements are being resolved, pointing to the collective management organisation being developed with the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property, new public–private partnerships, and the wider work of the Cultural Development Fund as examples.
The report’s final message is straightforward. The demographic and digital base is strong; the pathway to $0.5 billion in recorded-music revenue is clearly modelled; the state’s projected three-to-one return is quantified; and the wider live-sector and economic impacts are now visible in data. As Page told the CIC in closing: “Time starts now… CIC 2026 has to be about action. The conversation needs to stop. The execution needs to begin.”
For Saudi Arabia’s music ecosystem, the path ahead looks clear: strong foundations today create space for a music economy that can grow toward a billion-dollar future.
This article first appeared in The Business of Music
