The music industry is generally regarded to be in much better shape than it was even a year ago, and Universal Music showing further evidence to suggest a business on the mend with a reported income stream of close to $18 million daily in 2017, an 11% increase from the previous year.
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Guest post by Bobby Owsinski of Music 3.0
The recorded music business is definitely feeling better these days as all the major labels have reported big increases in revenue recently. The latest of these is Universal Music Group, who reportedly saw an income stream of close to $18 million every day in 2017. This represents a sales increase of around 11% from the year before.
Streaming was a big reason for the good year, as the company took in $2.23 billion in that area alone. UMG’s streaming figure means that its labels received around $186m every month, $40m every week and $6m every day from the format alone. Another $774 million came from downloads, which is still far larger than anyone realizes. Sales from physical formats fell 3.3% to $1.3 billion, which wasn’t as bad a decrease as had been predicted. Publisher revenue grew almost 10% as well to just under $1 billion, so that company had increases in most all fronts.
While there are a lot of revenue stats available from the company, the fact of the matter is that it’s a good time to be a major record label. The streaming market is getting larger, there may be a windfall profit when Spotify goes public (all 3 major labels own a piece of the company), and physical product and even downloads are still producing significant revenue. 5 years ago no one would have predicted this (although many believed that streaming would eventually replace much of the revenue from physical product), as the fate of the majors looked much more dire than it does today.
Many had also predicted the demise of the major label, yet today there aren’t many challengers to the throne. While so much can be DIY for both and artist and management these days, the ultimate goal is still being signed to a major. That outlook doesn’t look like it will change any time soon.