Welcome to Music Enterprise Worldwide’s weekly round-up – the place we be sure that 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 couple 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 continuing foreign money/like-for-like foundation (discounting one-time impacts from occasions corresponding to BMG‘s termination of its WMG distribution deal final 12 months).
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 progress of streaming income reported elsewhere.
In the meantime, HYBE is within the midst of a restructuring dubbed HYBE 2.0, and the newest information on that entrance is that the Okay-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 international technique beneath the management of newly appointed CEO Jason Jaesang Lee, who’s succeeding Jiwon Park, HYBE’s CEO for the previous three years.
One in every 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 one of the aggressive (and profitable) sectors in trendy music: offering distribution and companies for unbiased artists…
Sony’s international 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 international recorded music operation generated USD $1.92 billion, up 10.8% YoY.
Its international music publishing operation – led by Sony Music Publishing – generated USD $621.3 million within the three months to finish of June this 12 months, up 13.3% year-on-year…
Warner Music Group has revealed its monetary outcomes for the three months ended June 30, 2024 (calendar Q2 – the corporate’s fiscal Q3).
In response to the corporate’s fiscal Q3 (calendar Q2) outcomes, WMG noticed its quarterly international 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 “according to the prior quarter”, the corporate’s recorded music digital income progress was unfavorably impacted by the termination of its distribution settlement with BMG, which, it mentioned, 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 abruptly now not apprehensive in regards to the music business imploding.”
A jovial textual content from a distinguished music business 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 just a little extra severe.
After Common Music Group and Sony each reported streaming income progress slowdowns within the three months to the top of June, collywobbles about music’s long-term progress story had crept into Wall Road places of work.
Trade observers had begun to fret; business analysts had began to frown. That Goldman Sachs chart displaying 1.2 billion+ music streaming subscribers by 2030 abruptly 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.
Just a few moments later, Sir Lucian Grainge trumpeted the identical theme in his opening tackle 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 means to ship sustainable progress like this quarter after quarter is a product of how we’ve designed UMG.”
