By Lola Shibambo
Apple today announced that Shazam has surpassed 300 million monthly active users worldwide, with more people than ever before using the app to discover the music they love.
Throughout the years, the music industry has relied on a number of signals to answer the question of what the world is listening to. And for the past 20 years, Shazam has been one of the earliest and strongest signals — and it’s one that’s growing even stronger.
With an increasingly global user base, Shazam is getting even better at truly answering what the world is listening to.
African countries have been some of the fastest-growing user bases on Shazam, and African genres have been some of the fastest-growing genres, with many African songs topping the yearly global charts.
On the Top 100 2023: Shazam chart, Rema’s “Calm Down” takes No. 1 after spending more time atop the global Shazam chart over the past year than any other song.
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“‘Finding’ takes strength and passion,” Rema tells Apple Music.
“To everyone who took the energy to find this song, I hope it’s giving you joy wherever you are today and I hope it sounds as beautiful as the first day you heard it.”
Ayra Starr also ends the year in the top 10 of the Top 100 2023: Shazam as she becomes one of Nigeria’s most-Shazamed artists.
The global reach of K-Pop has continued to increase on Shazam, and the app’s user numbers have also seen notable growth in Korea.
More K-Pop songs have made it to the Shazam global charts in 2023 than in any previous year, with emerging band FIFTY FIFTY reaching No. 3 on the Shazam global charts, marking the first time a K-Pop act other than BTS or one of its members has charted this high. Música Mexicana has also seen significant growth in the last 12 months, with the only five tracks from this genre to enter the US Shazam top 10 all doing so within the last year.
One of the longest-standing apps on the App Store, Shazam has also continued to innovate and introduce a number of new features to make it easier for users to discover music no matter how or where they are listening.
Most recently, Shazam unveiled Concerts, a new space in the app where music fans can discover upcoming concerts that are happening in their area, providing personalised event recommendations based on their Shazam history or popular events around them.
Fans can also discover events by filtering location, date and artists.