A stream is the same unit on every chart. On a , it is a different currency in every territory.
pays from pools, not price lists. A platform takes its revenue, sets aside the share, and divides it across streams rata: your share of the plays is your share of the pot. The detail this module turns on is that there is no global pot. Each territory's pool is built from that territory's revenue. UK subscriptions and UK ad income fund the UK pool, and a stream in a LATAM or South Asian market is a claim on that market's pool, nothing more. Same pro-rata maths, run on very different money.
Why the local money is small. Subscription prices are set locally, at what the market will pay, and across much of LATAM and South and Southeast Asia that is a fraction of the UK price. A large slice of those subscriptions arrives through telco bundles: the music service sold inside a mobile contract, with the operator taking its margin before any revenue reaches the pool. And much of the listening is not subscription at all. Free, ad-supported tiers dominate in many of these markets, funded by local advertising rates that are thinner still. Small revenue divided across heavy listening produces a per-stream value that is a fraction of the UK's.
One more division before your client's share. The local pool splits pro rata across everything streamed in the territory, and in most of these markets the bulk of listening is local repertoire. Export catalogue competes for what is left.
For a royalty analyst, this is why a statement line can look broken when it is working exactly as designed. For a fund analyst, it is why a territory's chart and its income line can tell opposite stories. The maths first, then the harder question: whether the money is being collected at all.