The annual Music & Copyright survey of recorded music and publishing companies shows Universal Music Group maintaining its position as the world’s biggest record company and Sony topping music publishing. But the collective strength of indie labels and publishers again beat both.
Source: Music & Copyright market share report
Independent music companies collectively captured 32% of the recorded music market and 41.2% of music publishing, larger than any single major music group.
UMG saw gains in both physical and digital recorded music market shares, ending 2017 with a 29.9% share of total recorded-music revenue, up from 29.5% in 2016.
Sony accounted for 27.3% of global publishing revenue, up from 27% in 2016. It was the best year in the company’s history. Sony published the IFPI’s top three global artists of last year: Ed Sheeran, Drake, and Taylor Swift.
“Although the recorded-music and music publishing landscapes were relatively unchanged last year compared with 2016, there were some very interesting differences in some of the companies’ market shares,” said Simon Dyson, editor of Music & Copyright and Practice Leader of publisher Ovum’s Music team. “Both UMG and WMG had notably higher digital recorded-music shares than physical, while SME and WMG’s market share of streaming revenue outpaced their download shares. But, despite the subtle changes in shares for the majors, collectively, the indie sector was the leader in both recorded-music and music publishing.”