Beatport: 16 Years in Numbers

After wrapping up another phenomenal year as the world’s largest DJ download store, Beatport is looking back and taking stock of the company’s extraordinary achievements over the previous 16 years. In addition to this. Beatport is also revisiting the best-selling releases of 2019, shedding light on the top-selling tracks, compilations, and DJ charts from last year.

Since launching on January 7th 2004, Beatport has paid $300m to independent dance music labels — with over 259 million track downloads on the site. Beatport’s success is intertwined with the success of independent labels, and Beatport is proud to say that these payouts have consistently risen for the last three years. In 2019, Beatport also sold music for 74,000 independent labels — a far cry from the 74 imprints Beatport launched with 16 years ago. But that number is growing exponentially, and last year alone, 8,028 labels joined Beatport, while 589 artists reached number one.

Electronic music innovator deadmau5 is no stranger to the number one spot. The Canadian producer remains the all-time top selling artist on Beatport, followed by Mark Knight, David Guetta, Tiesto, and Slovenia’s techno legend UMEK.

Among the music labels that have made the most significant impact on Beatport over the past 16 years, Mark Knight’s Toolroom Records takes home the gold as the site’s most successful imprint. SPINNIN’ Records takes the number two spot, followed by Defected, Ultra, and Drumcode.

Techno continues to dominate as Beatport’s number one genre, followed by Tech House, House, Deep House, and Melodic House & Techno.

Since September of 2016, Beatport has added a slew of new genre categorizations including Melodic House & Techno, Future House, Trap / Future Bass, Garage / Bassline / Grime, Leftfield Bass, Leftfield House & Techno, and Afro House. To further help its customers seek out the music they desire more efficiently, Beatport added two new genre categorizations: Bass House and Nu Disco / Disco.

2019 saw the launch of Beatport LINK, the world’s first streaming platform for DJs, which allows users to stream any of the 9 million tracks available on the Beatport store directly to their DJ performance software. However, the launch of LINK Playlists late last year was a game-changer, giving users the ability to add curated content from the most prominent artists, clubs, and labels. And in 2019, 420,000 unique playlists were available — though that number is continually growing. Beatport LINK is steadily opening up a new era for DJing, and can undoubtedly be considered as a significant step towards changing how music is performed in clubs.

Bringing the magic of the dancefloor to the homes of our loyal customer base everywhere, Beatport Live delivered high-quality streams of world-renowned festivals such as ADE, Sonus Festival and Creamfields that racked up over 10 million global views.

Beatport’s CEO, Robb McDaniels, commented, “It’s been a ground-breaking year for Beatport. With the launch of LINK and our continued success as the world’s largest DJ download store, Beatport is moving into 2020 stronger than ever. The global DJ community is going to see innovative tools and services coming from Beatport in 2020 as we continue to evolve our company.”