Universal Music Group hosted its 2024 Capital Markets Day in London on Tuesday (September 17) at the iconic Abbey Road Studios (which is owned by UMG).
The marathon four-hour event featured detailed presentations by leaders from across the company’s global business, highlighting UMG’s successes, current positioning, as well as creative and business opportunities in the global music industry.
The event was kicked off by UMG Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge, who opened his speech with a brief history of Abbey Road itself, which, as Grainge noted, has served as the location of recordings from the Beatles to Fela Kuti, Amy Winehouse, and more superstars.
“If you look around, these are the same light fittings that Paul McCartney and John Lennon, Ringo [Starr], and George Harrison would have looked at,” Grainge told the audience.
Grainge also explained during his opening remarks what he said are “fundamental facts” that Universal has learned about the music business.
“Superfandom is a core component of music economics.”
Sir Lucian Grainge
“Fact number one”, according to Grainge, is that “streaming has resulted in a quantum leap forward in music access and monetization and streaming will continue to propel many years of industry growth.”
Fact two, according to Grainge, is “the deep and passionate connection between artists and their fans” or “superfandom”, which, he added, “is a core component of music economics”.
The third fact, Grainge told the audience, is that “music is fundamental to human experience”. He added: “It is the most enjoyed and influential form of media in the world and is driving the growth of the vast array of businesses that feature music as their essential ingredient.”
Elsewhere in his speech, Grainge noted that Universal is approaching the three-year anniversary of its public listing on the Amsterdam Euronext in 2021 while commenting that the company’s “track record has only grown stronger” since that IPO.
Added Grainge: “Working with entrepreneurial partners, as well as partners with tech companies, can be complex. It doesn’t always lead to linear progress from one quarter to the next, but the direction of travel is clear.
“We’ve achieved a consistent track record of success, and we will continue to build a vibrant music ecosystem that creates extraordinary opportunities for artists and their fans and exceptional returns for our investors.”
You can read Sir Lucian Grainge’s opening remarks in full below, complete with some of the slides he used to accompany his presentation…
I’m really delighted to welcome you all to Abbey Road for our Capital Markets Day presentation.
We’ve chosen to hold our event at this remarkable location because Abbey Road, like its parent company, Universal Music Group, has a long and storied past and continues to make history with every passing day.
Originally, this building was purchased in 1929, almost 100 years ago, as a nine-bedroom house. Two years later, it became the world’s first recording studio.
Since then, it’s become legendary as the birthplace of some of the most iconic and enduring recordings in history. Recordings by The Beatles, Ella Fitzgerald, Lady Gaga, Fela Kuti, Amy Winehouse, Sam Smith, Adele and countless others, all created right here in these rooms.
“To think that just before we acquired EMI, its former owners actually wanted to turn this building to an apartment block…”
I have this phrase that when you’re in a landmark like this, including our Capitol Studios in Hollywood. The music, the culture, the brilliance, just sort of pours off the wall.
If you look around, these are the same light fittings that Paul McCartney and John Lennon, Ringo and George Harrison would have looked at.
If you look around, is this where a company like us would normally have an event like this? It’s a bit tatty… we’ve spent a lot of money keeping it like this!
So we’re thrilled to be here. To think that just before we acquired EMI, its former owners actually wanted to turn this building to an apartment block. Thanks to our intervention, ownership and investment, it’s here, with future masterpieces waiting to become immortal.
Another aspect of Abbey Road’s storied past includes groundbreaking advances in technology that first saw the light of day in here.
In 1939, binaural recordings, what we now know today as stereo, and then in 1959 the first mixing consoles came along, all designed and built, once again in this very building.
In recent years, Abbey Road Red, our incubator for music tech startups, have lived here, working with academics and entrepreneurs. Red’s R&D team is creating breakthrough applications in AI, virtual reality, spatial audio and health and wellness, which we really do believe in as a category for the future.
As it approaches its centenary, Abbey Road stands as the perfect microcosm of what we are as UMG.
Abbey Road is a living example of our unwavering determination to be at the vanguard of developing innovative and exciting ways in which music can be experienced.
“Abbey Road is a living example of our unwavering determination to be at the vanguard of developing innovative and exciting ways in which music can be experienced.”
Sir Lucian Grainge
Four days from now, we’ll be marking the three-year anniversary of our public listing, making this a fitting time for us to update you on the opportunities we’re pursuing and reintroduce you to our extraordinary management team — a team of executives who collectively possess not only decades of experience but decades of unparalleled success.
These professionals have the privilege of working with the most talented artists and songwriters in the world, and they also share the honor of stewarding the most beloved catalog of music ever assembled.
A catalog that keeps expanding with each new discovery that we make. Another reason UMG is the most successful music company in history is that we foster and promote an entrepreneurial spirit. You’ll hear much more as the day unfolds.
I’ll say more about the importance of that, but let me just say now that it’s a willingness to take risks that keeps our global organization, with hundreds of business units in over 60 countries, nimble and daring and ready to embrace and drive the change.
“Streaming has resulted in a quantum leap forward in music, access and monetization.”
Sir lucian Grainge
Over the years, our industry has grown and changed in extraordinary ways. People are listening to more music than ever before and the experience of listening to music is better than ever before. At UMG, we believe we’ve played a central role in ushering in those changes and working with our artists and partners to bring those about.
We’ve been the essential catalyst for some of the industry’s most significant periods of change and growth. Yet even in the midst of change, we also believe that there are facts that shape our business. For the next few minutes, I’d like to briefly share these and describe how they guide us and deepen our conviction in the extraordinary opportunity we see ahead.
It’s easy to be confident when you know where you’re going.
You’ll hear in greater detail from a number of our leaders about the creative, technological and investment strategies we’ll be implementing to turn those opportunities into realities.
And you’ll get an inside look at the compelling vision of our label group, CEOs, and the Universal Music Publishing Group global leadership team.
By the end of the day, I believe you’ll come to both understand and share our excitement around the possibilities of our future and why we capitalize on those opportunities and deliver for our artists, their fans as well as our investors.
So what have we learned about the fundamental facts of our business?
Fact number one. Streaming has resulted in a quantum leap forward in music, access and monetization. And streaming will continue to propel many years of industry growth.
Fact two; the deep and passionate connection between artists and their fans: Superfandom, is a core component of music economics.
Fact three: Music is fundamental to human experience. It is the most enjoyed and influential form of media in the world and is driving the growth of the vast array of businesses that feature music as their essential ingredient.
Let’s dive into [fact one]. For consumers, the value proposition of streaming is extraordinary. Access to all the music in the world in the palm of your hand, frictionless discovery, personalized, shareable, and always with you everywhere you go.
For the music industry and the DSPS, the value creation from streaming is equally extraordinary. And then the next phase of streaming, what I like to call streaming 2.0 – and you’ll hear more about streaming 2.0 later – we believe that the value will grow enormously.
Consider that today, hundreds and hundreds of millions of consumers have migrated from a one-time purchase experience to paid subscription with its high level of persistent and recurring monetization.
Simply put, the monetization of listening profoundly increases the ‘TAM’ – the addressable market for our business.
Not so long ago, many pundits were saying that 100 million subscribers would constitute the market ceiling.
I remember when we started offline in the Nordics and we had 7 million subscribers. We repeatedly and correctly insisted that that view was wrong, that the ceiling was 100 million.
Not only were they not considering the growth we saw coming from high potential markets, but they were consistently underestimating the headroom in the established markets as well.
Today, we’re at well over 600 million subscribers, and we’re nowhere near saturation. The addressable market in both established markets and fast-growing high-potential music markets is massive.
We expect more than a billion subscribers by the end of the decade, and we constantly ask ourselves, how long could it take us to get to 2 billion?
It would be a mistake to think that we’re in business with only a handful of technology partners and DSPS, just the ones that get the headlines. The reality is that we’re a business at the center of an extraordinary ecosystem of technology partners, retailers, DSPs, as well as over 1,000 of our own direct to consumer channels.
What began as a digital transformation with a half a dozen key partners has today grown into a vibrant ecosystem of hundreds of digital partners. In fact, some of our fastest growing subscription partners, such as YouTube, are also among the most recent to have launched.
And it would be an even bigger mistake to think we are passive beneficiaries of market growth. If there’s one thing we are not, that is passive. When I say we’re working with our partners, I genuinely mean we are working with them.
We work closely, innovating with them on multiple fronts, fueling the growth of the ecosystem and increasing monetization for all of us, UMG, the industry, the platforms, and especially our artists, as well as, along the way, continuing to deliver and creating great experiences to the fans.
You’ll hear more later today, but we believe we are nowhere close to achieving the full potential of our business. While streaming has delivered robust growth to UMG for over a decade, streaming 2.0 will represent a new age of innovation.
Consumer segmentation, geographic expansion and greater value through both subscriber and ARPU growth. For example, through our artist-centric strategy, we’re already increasing music monetization and seeing meaningful benefits.
We’re limiting the gaming of the system by protecting against fraud and content saturation. They’re two very important things to us. And we’re creating more engaging and appealing consumer experiences, including specially designed new products and premium tiers for the superfan.
I think it’s probably a nice segue into Fact number two, the deep and passionate connection between artists and their fans. Super fandom is a core component of music industry economics.
Like many other consumer businesses, our industry has long been powered by the most passionate fans, those who are most deeply engaged with their favorite artists.
From the 1960s through to the 1990s that passion was evident at midnight on what we used to call release days.
As fans waited in long lines outside record stores for the thrill of being among the first to buy and listen to the latest music from their artists. We all remember lines and queues outside a Michael Jackson or Shania Twain album [release]. Deep fandom.
Later in this journey, in the download era, when the iTunes Store accounted for overwhelmingly the majority of the industry’s digital sales, 25% of consumers who were super fans drove 75% of the spend at the store.
Today, in the streaming era, the passion and engagement is still there. We’ve seen glimpses of it with the resurgence of vinyl and the growth in music merchandise.
But critically, as valuable as streaming is, it has also leveled the playing field, by which I mean whether it’s five hours a day or five hours a week, the deeply passionate listener pays the same price for the same access as a casual one.
We have the opportunity to innovate and develop products and experiences that will tap into and unlock the economic potential of their fandom. And as you will learn, we’re doing just that on our own, as well as with our partners.
We’re creating and monetizing new ways to meet the superfans’ pent up demand for products, experiences and access that brings them closer to the music and to the artists that they love.
And now, the big picture, fact three.
Music is absolutely fundamental to the human experience. It is the most enjoyed and influential form of media and entertainment in the world, and is driving the growth of a vast array of businesses featuring music as their essential ingredient.
No other medium of creative expression, no form of entertainment, is more fundamental to us, all of us as humans, than music.
It permeates every aspect of our lives, at home, on the go, while we work, while we study, and it accompanies all of us when we’re alone, and binds us together. Music moves culture.
It gives a voice to what we feel and to what we feel and what we believe, and has helped catalyze movements and genres throughout history.
Someone said to me years ago that music has been around for 1,000 years, and music will be around for the next 5,000 years. You can find people that don’t like movies or watch television or read books or read newspapers.
But bring me someone that doesn’t like music, some form of music, some form of music globally. All other forms of media rise and fall with changing consumer tastes, while the centrality and monetization of music keeps expanding.
Here’s just one example. Of the Top 20 most followed people globally on social media, 10 of them are recording artists, and seven of those 10 are our artists signed to UMG.
The core of our success is our unique ability to identify and sign great artists and songwriters, whatever their country or language or genre in which they create.
Once signed, we amplify their reach. We love amplifying their reach and help them to develop long-term careers so that their artistry becomes part of global culture. Artists, including Chapel Roan, Sabrina Carpenter. Those two artists that were playing earlier when you when you arrived. And even Olivia Rodrigo. Deep, deep, deep songwriting, artistic talent, creators, innovators.
Our track record in developing new artists and then turning them into global brands is unmatched, not only in music, but in any other form of entertainment. For example, if you look at the last five years of the world’s best-selling artists, you’ll see that UMG has consistently been the source of the vast majority of global bestsellers, regardless of where they’re from, in what genre they perform, or in what language they sing.
I mean, this is unprecedented in any business, any industry, any sector, any product, any entertainment.
We’re proud that UMG is home to so many of the world’s greatest artists. That’s been true this decade, and the consistent performance of our teams, our strategy and our unique culture, underscores our belief that it will continue to be true in a decade to come and the one after that.
As I said earlier, the entrepreneurial spirit at our core makes us risk-tolerant and opportunity-seeking. Entrepreneurship that is investing risk capital against unproven talent. Believe me, it’s not for the faint-hearted or for the inexperienced.
Our team makes it look much easier than it is, but that’s exactly what this experienced team does, and they do it more successfully than anyone else ever has. It’s in our DNA.
We are, in fact, an organization built by entrepreneurial visionaries. Our businesses and our youth and our business units are supportive of each other, yet, given our entrepreneurial culture internally, they remain extremely competitive, and I like that.
We foster that, and you’ll see that in the presentations throughout the rest of the day, and that deep-seated spirit is the reason why we are able to partner with so many new entrepreneurs.
But we’re not resting on our laurels. Our network of entrepreneurs is larger today than it’s ever been, and every year, new platforms and experiences are coming to market. We partner with entrepreneurs in different regions around but we don’t make them adapt to us.
We strive to learn from them so were constantly evolving and that’s the guiding ethos at the heart of the high-potential markets and the Virgin Music Group strategy, which you’ll hear a lot more about later, as well.
Over time, many forces have tried to disrupt our business, but the innovation that arises from our internal competition, our relentless desire to break new ground, not being afraid of change, embracing change, has kept us continuously ahead of our established competitors as well as the new entrants.
Our success isn’t formulaic, it’s organic. What we do and how we do it is impossible to duplicate. A vast array of businesses are dependent on what only we can provide at the level that we do. And what we provide, is simply great music. But believe me, it’s not that simple, as I said.
While we work with those businesses to bring innovation to life, it’s the ultimate truth that whether anyone can distribute, channel, succeed, and how you evaluate failure, it’s our music that will always be the driving force of any business reliant on music. The social music category didn’t exist until we helped launch it in 2017. I give a nod to my friend and colleague, Michael Nash.
Today, it’s a key component of what the IFPI estimated in 2023 will be a $5.3 billion ad-supported sector. It didn’t exist before.
And the financial results of those efforts are clear. Since our listing, our track record has only grown stronger. Let me close by saying that working with entrepreneurial partners, as well as partners with tech companies, it can be complex. It doesn’t always lead to linear progress from one quarter to the next, but the direction of travel is clear.
We’ve achieved a consistent track record of success, and we will continue to build a vibrant music ecosystem that creates extraordinary opportunities for artists and their fans and exceptional returns for our investors.
I say this not with arrogance, but with pride. Simply put, UMG is not only the most successful company in the entire history of music business, but also the company that is the most essential in driving the industry forward.
On this yet another historical day here at Abbey Road, you’re going to learn about many exciting developments at our company. Let’s begin with the presentation by bringing up Boyd Muir [Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and President of Operations], Michael Nash [Michael Nash is Executive Vice President, Chief Digital Officer] and Gabby Lopes [SVP Global Insight], who will be walking you through our market outlook, digital strategy and various other aspects of our business.
Thank you.Music Business Worldwide