Welcome to Music Enterprise Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we make certain you caught the 5 greatest tales to hit our headlines over the previous seven days. MBW’s round-up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximize their earnings and cut back their touring prices.
It was a busy week for music firm earnings, with Sony and Warner releasing their calendar Q2 numbers, following Common’s launch of its equal figures a number of weeks earlier.
Sony reported USD $2.54 billion in revenues from recorded music and publishing within the quarter, up 11.4% YoY (on a US dollar-converted foundation), whereas Warner Music’s revenues of $1.55 billion have been up 3.1% YoY on a relentless foreign money/like-for-like foundation (discounting one-time impacts from occasions corresponding to BMG‘s termination of its WMG distribution deal final yr).
Nevertheless it was Warner’s 13.7% YoY spike in streaming subscription revenues that stole the present, bringing much-needed reduction to music buyers perturbed by the slowdown in development of streaming income reported elsewhere.
In the meantime, HYBE is within the midst of a restructuring dubbed HYBE 2.0, and the most recent information on that entrance is that the Ok-pop large is launching a label companies enterprise within the US market.
Lastly, MBW explored the fragile energy stability between Spotify and Common Music Group (and why UMG would possibly find yourself turning the screw on Spotify’s free tier).
Final week, HYBE, the South Korea-headquartered music firm behind superstars BTS and SEVENTEEN, rebooted.
The corporate launched HYBE 2.0, a brand new world technique below the management of newly appointed CEO Jason Jaesang Lee, who’s succeeding Jiwon Park, HYBE’s CEO for the previous three years.
Certainly one of its most shocking plans was buried in an in depth run-down of the brand new construction.
HYBE revealed that it’s getting into probably the most aggressive (and profitable) sectors in trendy music: offering distribution and companies for impartial artists…
Sony’s world music rights operation – throughout recorded music and music publishing – generated USD $2.54 billion within the three months to finish of June 2024.
That’s in accordance with MBW’s calculations primarily based on Sony Group Corp’s calendar Q2 2024 (fiscal Q1 2025) outcomes, as introduced by the Japanese agency on August 7.
The $2.54 billion determine was up 11.4% year-on-year (vs. calendar Q2 2023) at US dollar-converted fixed foreign money.
Sony’s world recorded music operation generated USD $1.92 billion, up 10.8% YoY.
Its world music publishing operation – led by Sony Music Publishing – generated USD $621.3 million within the three months to finish of June this yr, up 13.3% year-on-year…
Warner Music Group has printed its monetary outcomes for the three months ended June 30, 2024 (calendar Q2 – the corporate’s fiscal Q3).
In keeping with the corporate’s fiscal Q3 (calendar Q2) outcomes, WMG noticed its quarterly world company-wide revenues attain USD $1.554 billion (throughout recorded music, music publishing, and different actions).
WMG famous in its SEC submitting on Wednesday (August 7) that “in line with the prior quarter”, the corporate’s recorded music digital income development was unfavorably impacted by the termination of its distribution settlement with BMG, which, it stated, resulted in $26 million much less income in comparison with the prior-year quarter.
Together with the BMG termination, WMG’s company-wide income in calendar Q2 was up 0.6% YoY at fixed foreign money…
“Properly, I’m glad that we’re all of a sudden now not nervous in regards to the music trade imploding.”
A jovial textual content from a outstanding music trade investor despatched to MBW yesterday afternoon, shortly after Warner Music Group‘s calendar Q2 earnings announcement.
The phrasing was tongue in cheek, the underlying message slightly extra critical.
After Common Music Group and Sony each reported streaming income development slowdowns within the three months to the tip of June, collywobbles about music’s long-term development story had crept into Wall Avenue workplaces.
Trade observers had begun to fret; trade analysts had began to frown. That Goldman Sachs chart displaying 1.2 billion+ music streaming subscribers by 2030 all of a sudden felt a bit much less convincing.
“Common Music gross sales beat expectations in second quarter.”
That was the (completely correct) headline from Reuters minutes after Common Music Group confirmed its Q2 2024 outcomes on July 24.
A couple of moments later, Sir Lucian Grainge trumpeted the identical theme in his opening deal with of UMG’s earnings name.
“[This was] our seventh consecutive quarter of double-digit improve in adjusted EBITDA,” famous Grainge, confirming that UMG’s revenues have been up ~11% YoY within the quarter, with EBITDA up ~10% YoY.
He added: “Our skill to ship sustainable development like this quarter after quarter is a product of how we’ve designed UMG.”
Then the storm started…
MBW’s Weekly Spherical-Up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their earnings and cut back their touring prices.Music Enterprise Worldwide
