Contents
- Sheet music publishing statistics: U.S. printed music retail
- French classical printed score sales and product mix
- French score sales by geography
- French classical sheet-music publishing revenue and rights
- Reading the market figures in context
- Sources
Sheet music publishing statistics: U.S. printed music retail
The U.S. printed music retail market was estimated at $372.0 million in 2024, its lowest value in ten years, according to NAMM’s Music USA: 2025 Global Report. The category is broader than sheet-music sales alone: it includes method books, instructional materials, popular folios, and related print music products. The estimate therefore gives a view of the wider printed music retail category, not a count or value of sheet-music publishing alone.
Retail value fell 2.6% from 2023 to 2024. Across the ten-year period ending in 2024, NAMM reports a 26.4% decline. These figures describe changes in retail value; they do not by themselves show how many copies were sold or explain what drove the trend. The report also notes that two print publishers ranked among the music products industry’s 100 largest suppliers in 2024, compared with five 15 years earlier. That is a supplier ranking observation, not a count of all publishers active in the market.
| U.S. printed music retail measure | Reported result | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Estimated retail value | $372.0 million | 2024 |
| Change in retail value | −2.6% | 2023–2024 |
| Ten-year retail-value trend | −26.4% | 2015–2024 |
| Print publishers among the 100 largest music products suppliers | 2 | 2024 |
Source: NAMM, Music USA: 2025 Global Report, p. 35. The ten-year comparison is the report’s stated trend.
French classical printed score sales and product mix
The French classical market report gives a narrower picture: sales of scores and printed music totaled €9.7 million in 2023, down 5% from €10.2 million in 2022. Its recalculated historical series puts sales at €12.1 million in 2019, €10.3 million in 2020, and €11.3 million in 2021 before the subsequent declines. The report says its 2019–2022 data were recalculated to reflect a change in representativeness and SEAM distributions, so comparisons should use this revised series.
| Year | French classical scores and printed music sales |
|---|---|
| 2019 | €12.1 million |
| 2020 | €10.3 million |
| 2021 | €11.3 million |
| 2022 | €10.2 million |
| 2023 | €9.7 million |
The unit mix reveals that educational material was central to this market. In 2023, training material and instrumental methods accounted for 66.4% of units sold. Instrumental works represented 26.8%, choral music 6.5%, and pop 0.3%. These are shares of units within the report’s French classical printed-music classification. In particular, the 0.3% pop figure should not be read as pop’s share of all sheet music sold in France; it reflects the report’s classification and market scope.
The mix suggests that a unit of printed music in this measured classical category was much more likely to be educational material than a choral or pop item. It does not establish the relative revenue of those formats: the figures measure unit shares, and the report presents value measures separately.
Source: CSDM, Focus on Music Publishing in France, 2023 Data, pp. 24–25. Sales values are millions of euros; product shares are shares of units sold.
French score sales by geography
The report’s 2023 geographic breakdown assigns 87.5% of score sales value to France and 12.5% to exports. The export share was reported as down 14.5 percentage points year over year. This is a change in export share, measured in percentage points—not a 14.5% decline in export revenue. The breakdown describes the score sales covered by the French music-publishing survey; it should not be generalized to every French publisher or to all music products.
The domestic share is consequently the larger part of the measured value, while exports account for about one-eighth. The reported movement in export share adds a year-to-year comparison, but the figures supplied do not show the underlying euro value of exports or explain the change.
| Geography | Share of score sales by value, 2023 |
|---|---|
| France | 87.5% |
| Exports | 12.5% |
| Reported export-share change | −14.5 percentage points vs. 2022 |
Source: CSDM, Focus on Music Publishing in France, 2023 Data, p. 25. Shares are by sales value.
French classical sheet-music publishing revenue and rights
Printed scores are one component of the French classical publishing business. In the report’s 2023 breakdown of the music education and classical music publishing sector, sheet-music sales and specific reproduction rights together amounted to €15.3 million, or 52% of sector value. Rental and grand rights contributed €6.4 million (22%), while other rights, including Sacem and synchronization, accounted for €7.4 million (26%).
Within the €15.3 million sheet-music-sales-and-specific-reproduction-rights category, printed music sales were €9.7 million (64%). SEAM reprographic rights contributed €5.3 million (34%), and sheet-music reproduction-rights licences added €0.3 million (2%). These are nested measures: the €9.7 million is the printed-sales component of the €15.3 million category, while the latter sits within the broader music education and classical publishing sector.
| French classical and music education activity | 2023 value | Share of relevant total |
|---|---|---|
| Sheet-music sales and specific reproduction rights | €15.3 million | 52% of sector value |
| Rental and grand rights | €6.4 million | 22% of sector value |
| Other rights | €7.4 million | 26% of sector value |
| Printed music sales | €9.7 million | 64% of the €15.3 million category |
| SEAM reprographic rights | €5.3 million | 34% of the €15.3 million category |
| Sheet-music reproduction-rights licences | €0.3 million | 2% of the €15.3 million category |
Source: CSDM, Focus on Music Publishing in France, 2023 Data, charts “Breakdown of the Music Education & Classical Music Publishing Sector” and “Focus on Classical Sheet Music Sales and Specific Reproduction Rights.”
Reading the market figures in context
The report also places classical music within the broader French publishing market. Classical music made up 7% of surveyed French music publishers’ turnover by value in 2023. This is a survey-respondent share of total turnover, not a measure of sheet music’s share of all music publishing revenue. The same report says the classical segment’s revenues rose 4.5% in 2023 compared with 2022. Its classical revenue definition includes printed music sales, orchestral score rentals, reprographic rights collected by SEAM, and grand rights, so the increase should not be attributed to printed score sales alone.
For comparison of scale, the entire French music publishing market was valued at €507 million in 2023, up 20% from 2022. That market-wide figure includes a much broader publishing business than classical scores. It provides context for the 7% survey turnover share, but does not convert the score-sales data into a national estimate.
Taken together, the available measures describe two different markets and units of analysis. NAMM tracks U.S. retail value for a broad category of printed music products; the French report separates classical score sales, units by product type, value by geography, and revenue streams across a defined publishing sector. The U.S. ten-year decline and the French 2023 figures are useful indicators within their stated scopes, but they are not directly comparable measures of the same market.