Kobalt Music Group‘s gross collections grew by 30% during its 2018 financial year – up to $494m.
The company also expects to see continued growth, to over $600m in gross collections for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2019.
The numbers were revealed in Kobalt’s latest annual accounts released today (March 28) which cover its fiscal full-year for the 12 months to end of June 2018.
Kobalt’s net revenues increased 25.3% in its 2018 financial year, up to $402m.
The figure is up $81.1m year-on-year, and up around $142m on the $260m the firm posted for its 2016 financial year.
Gross profit for the fiscal year ending June 2018 was $52.5m, which increased 23.6% from the $42.5m reported for 2017.
Kobalt’s operating losses reached $41.4m in the year, up from $24.3m in 2017.
The company’s employee numbers increased from an average of 376 to 515 during the year.
Meanwhile, Kobalt’s recordings business AWAL saw significant revenue growth of over 50% in the 2018 fiscal year and is anticipated to achieve a similar growth for 2019.
AWAL’s artist streaming highlights included Lauv, who has now reached 2.2bn streams, Rex Orange County (700m streams), Tom Misch (400m streams), R3HAB (700m streams), and Bruno Major (200m streams).
In addition to this streaming success, Kobalt’s recordings division also had four records enter the UK charts in the Top 10.
AWAL also expanded its B2B ventures with new label clients including 30th Century Records (Danger Mouse), Good Soldier Records, and LEX Records, among others.
Kobalt has also added the likes of Childish Gambino, Marshmello, Ozuna, Enrique Iglesias, among others to its publishing roster in the past year.
Just outside of Kobalt’s fiscal year, the company entered into a landmark strategic partnership with independent label Glassnote Records.
“We’re outpacing the industry in terms of growth,” said Willard Ahdritz (pictured), Founder & CEO of Kobalt.
“We’ve been laser-focused on building out the global team to support the rapidly growing music industry and setting up creators for success.
“We’re outpacing the industry in terms of growth. We’ve been laser-focused on building out the global team to support the rapidly growing music industry and setting up creators for success.”
Willard Ahdritz, Kobalt
“We’ve established ourselves as the technology leader in the industry, and we are deeply investing in building innovative new products and services across the music ecosystem to super-serve our roster, across publishing, recordings, collections, neighbouring rights and synch,” he added.
“We are very excited by the rapid growth of AWAL, our recordings business, which achieved growth of over 50% in the last fiscal year and is anticipated to continue a similar growth rate this year. Through its unique multi-tiered model, AWAL is designed to serve artists at all stages of their careers on a scalable platform.”Music Business Worldwide
