Once again, despite licensing issues with Spotify, music streaming pushes industry revenue way, way up.
Universal Music Group reported $1.1 billion in music streaming revenue alone between January and September of this year. This marks a 64.3% increase from the same period last year.
Vivendi’s 3Q 2016 report shows that its Universal Music Group unit made a whopping $4.48 million per day from streaming services. In bad news for digital downloads, but in good news for music streaming, streaming revenues doubled digital music downloads revenue. This represents a 29% drop, signaling that most fans are purchasing less individual songs and albums online, and moving towards the music streaming model.
UMG’s operating income also grew 75% to $193.1 million, compared with just $111 million last year. The company also posted a 10.8% increase in revenue, thanks in large part to Spotify and Apple Music.
Compared to last year, UMG revenues are up 3.8%, to $4.02 billion from $3.9 billion. The company’s U.S. market share is down, however.
Overall recorded music sales for UMG went up 2.9% to $3.1 billion. Sony’s recorded music division, likewise, posted $2.65 billion. The drop represents an unfavorable currency conversion. Licensing and other revenue for UMG declined to $553 million, from last year’s $565.6 million.
Quarterly recorded music streaming revenues brought in $413 million. Physical sales were down 13.4%, but still brought in $833.6 million. However, in the first nine months of 2015, physical sales brought in $971 million. Streaming compromises 36.4% of recorded music operations whereas physical accounts for 26.6%, downloads 19.4%, and licensing and other revenues 17.6%. Last year, physical sales brought in 31.6%, streaming 25.5%, downloads a strong 24.4%, and licensing and other revenues 18.4%. You can check out MBW’s helpful chart below for the 3Q 2016.
UMG is on track to post $5 billion in revenue for 2016.
