The three biggest music rights companies in the world all report their finances in different currencies.
US-based Warner Music Group reports in US Dollars. Sony’s music operations – part of Japan-based Sony Corp – report in Yen. And Universal Music Group, which trades on Amsterdam’s Euronext, reports in Euros.
Using financial information from each company, MBW can convert Sony (Yen) and UMG (Euros) into US dollars (USD) at prevailing quarterly rates, giving a single-currency picture of each firm’s performance.
(Sony provides quarterly average prevailing Yen-USD rates; Universal’s EUR-USD conversion has been made at average quarterly rates as per the European Central Bank.)
Using this quarterly data, the below data visualization compares the ANNUAL music streaming revenues of each company, converted into USD (aside from WMG, which reports in USD as its ‘root’ currency).
In this case ‘music streaming’ combines revenue from both paid-for and ad-funded services.
![](https://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/files/2025/01/sony-vs-universal-vs-warner-recorded-music-streaming-in-usd-annual-80x44.png)