Sony collected a $768 million windfall from the sale of less than half of its 5.7% stake in Spotify (SPOT), according to Q2 results published Tuesday. The sale helped boost what was already a solid quarter for the company.
Sony still owen about $862 million in Spotify shares. The company also reported the purchase of the last 10% of EMI Music Publishing controlled by the estate of Michael Jackson for $288 million.
Sony Music reported strong revenue growth for the fourth straight quarter driven by and “increase in recorded music sales due to an increase in digital streaming revenues.” Music division revenue topped $914M in Q2 2018, up 1.7% year over year, but down slightly compared to the previous two quarters.
- Q2 streaming revenue hit $478M, up 38.2% year-on-year.
- The bottom continued to fall out of physical music sales, dropping 31.5% to $206.8M.