The latest: Australian music industry news

Pro audio is taking the largest market share

The Australian Music Association described 2025 as a year of stability. The average year-on-year change across the covered period was 3%, but the latest annual move was only +1%, making it the most stable post-pandemic result in the dataset cited by Mixdown.

The strongest read-through is in category allocation:

• Pro audio remained the largest section of the music-products market, with estimated retail value of $436 million.
• Growth in 2025 was described by the AMA as being “largely in the Pro Audio section rather than musical instruments.”
• Power amplifiers, bass guitars and wireless microphones were up.
• Pro audio units eased by 19.6%, mostly due to microphones, while value increased 0.3% year on year after 0.4% the previous year.

That is not a simple growth story. It is a value-stability story. Fewer units in parts of the market, stable value, and concentration in professional-use categories point to a buyer base prioritising utility. For performers, this matters more than headline retail growth: live-ready gear, recording hardware and stage audio appear to be absorbing budget that once moved more broadly across consumer instruments.

Guitars split, drums rotate, synths lose momentum

The instrument market is now uneven by design. Bass guitars were the standout category, rising 9.3% in units and 17.7% in value. Acoustic guitars were also up, with units increasing 11.2% and value up 5.4%. Electric guitars, however, eased by 1% in value and fell 5.2% in units.

The broader fretted-instrument and amplifier picture is mixed. Ukuleles and other traditional fretted instruments declined in units, while combo amplifiers were also down in units. The estimated retail value for this area was $206 million.

Percussion shows an important format shift. Drum kits fell 37.9% in value, but every other category in percussion offset that decline, leaving the section up 3.4% overall. Mixdown’s report says the data suggests acoustic drum kits are being replaced over time by electronic kits. That aligns with the separate result in electronic instruments: synthesizers fell 31.4% in units to their lowest level in a decade and dropped 23.8% in value, while other electronic instruments, including electronic drums, rose 32.7% in units and 14.5% in value. Estimated retail value for electronic instruments was $93 million.

For touring acts and developing artists, the implication is not that one format has “won.” It is that the spend is becoming more functional. Compact, stage-adaptable and production-linked equipment appears better positioned than discretionary instrument purchases.

AI rights pressure joins the cost-of-business file

The market data is arriving alongside a separate rights issue. Following reports that Australian and New Zealand tracks are being used to train artificial intelligence models without authorisation, musicians and associations have urged the Federal Government to provide copyright protection, legal recourse and financial compensation to rights holders.

An open letter cited in the report framed the demand around accountability, consent and remuneration. For the music business, that language is not cosmetic. It goes directly to recoupable value: recordings and compositions are assets only if their usage can be licensed, tracked and paid.

Independent artists are also being told to treat promotion with stricter metrics. A separate industry guide for independent artists in 2026 argues that viral luck is not a plan and points to completion rates, save rates, short-form video, email lists and consistent release systems as core operating tools. Its central claim is blunt: streaming revenue alone cannot support most independent artists.

The forecast is therefore conservative. Australia’s music economy is not showing a broad consumer boom; it is showing stabilisation, selective category growth and rising pressure around rights protection. The next useful metric is whether pro audio keeps its value share while AI licensing moves from advocacy into enforceable commercial terms.