Sony Music Group delivered strong double-digit growth in the final quarter of 2023.
Sony’s global music rights operation – across recorded music and music publishing – generated USD $2.52 billion in the three months to end of December.
That’s according to MBW’s calculations based on Sony Group Corp’s calendar Q4 2023 (fiscal Q3 2023) results, as announced by the Japanese firm today (February 14).
The $2.52 billion figure was up 14.0% year-on-year (vs. calendar Q4 2022) at US dollar-converted constant currency.
In monetary terms, Sony’s overall music rights operation (recorded music plus music publishing) generated approximately $309 million more in calendar Q4 2023 than in the prior-year quarter.
[Note: Corporately speaking, Sony Group’s global music operation includes recorded music, plus music publishing, plus ‘Visual Media & Platform’. The final category primarily covers mobile games and animation projects, and has been omitted from MBW’s revenue calculations in this analysis.]
Sony’s recorded music operation
Sony’s global recorded music operation generated USD $1.937 billion in calendar Q4 2023, up 14.8% YoY versus the equivalent quarterly period of the prior year.
Within that calendar Q4 2023 global recorded music result, streaming generated $1.261 billion, up 12.3% YoY.
(This ‘streaming’ number combines both subscription and ad-funded streaming revenues generated by Sony’s global recorded music operation.)
Quarterly revenues from physical music sales in calendar Q4 2023 hit USD $213.2 million (down 2.7% YoY).
Sony’s ‘Other’ fiscal category within recorded music generated $403.9 million in calendar Q4, up 39.7% YoY on the $289.1 million generated in the prior-year quarter.
This latter category (‘Other’) includes license revenue (public performance, broadcast and sync), merchandising, and live performance income.
According to Sony Corp‘s results, Sony Music Entertainment‘s ten biggest recorded music projects in calendar Q4 2023 quarter (ex-artists signed in Japan), in order of global revenue generation, were as below.
- SZA, SOS
- Travis Scott, UTOPIA
- Rod Wave, Nostalgia
- Doja Cat, Scarlet
- blink-182, ONE MORE TIME…
- Mariah Carey, Merry Christmas
- Tate McRae, THINK LATER
- Harry Styles, Harry’s House
- Phil Spector, A Christmas Gift For You From Phil Spector
- Fuerza Regida, Pa las Baby’s Y Belikeada
Sony’s Music Publishing operation
Sony’s global music publishing operation – led by Sony Music Publishing – generated $582.0 million in the three months to end of December 2023.
That quarterly revenue figure, at the US dollar level, was up 11.2% year-on-year.
Sony’s global music publishing operation derived $343.9 million of its quarterly revenues in the calendar Q4 2023 period from streaming.
That publishing streaming figure was up 17.3% year-on-year.
Sony’s global music profits
Sony Corp also today issued some profit numbers for its corporate Music division in the three months to end of December 2023.
(The following figures include Sony’s operations across Recorded Music, Music Publishing plus Visual Media & Platform. Sony doesn’t break out profits for its corporate Music division in the same way it does revenue, so for divisional operating income VM&P cannot be extracted/omitted.)
In calendar Q4 2023 (fiscal Q3 2023), Sony’s corporate Music division posted a quarterly operating income of 76.1 billion Yen (USD $515m).
That represented an operating margin of 18.0%, from total divisional quarterly revenues (again, including ‘Visual Media & Platform’) of 422.1 billion Yen (USD $2.85bn).
Sony Corp additionally presents to investors its Adjusted OIBDA performance in each quarter (see below) – a metric also used by Warner Music Group to present its earnings.
In calendar Q4 2023 (fiscal Q3 2023), Sony’s Music division posted an Adjusted OIBDA of 98.5 billion Yen (USD $666m).
That represented an Adjusted OIBDA margin from total divisional quarterly revenues of 23.3%.
Note: All YoY percentage rises/falls published in this story are calculated at constant currency at the US dollar-converted level. MBW uses Sony’s own quarterly average currency rates for these calculations.
See below for the breakdown of Sony’s latest (fiscal) quarterly figures for music in Japanese Yen, as published by Sony Group Corp today.
For this analysis, MBW has calculated Sony’s financials from Japanese Yen into US dollars at the following prevailing exchange rates in each quarter, as provided by Sony Corp:
- Calendar Q1 2020: 109.0 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q2 2020: 107.6 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q3 2020: 106.2 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q4 2020: 104.5 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q1 2021: 105.9 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q2 2021: 109.5 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q3 2021: 110.1 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q4 2021: 113.7 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q1 2022: 116.1 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q2 2022: 129.4 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q3 2022: 138.2 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q4 2022: 132.3 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q1 2023: 135.4 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q2 2023: 137.0 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q3 2023: 144.4 Yen per USD
- Calendar Q4 2023: 147.9 Yen per USD
By applying these exchange figures to each applicable period, we effectively get a US-leaning constant currency picture of Sony Music’s global performance.
This isn’t a perfect system; it risks overplaying Sony Music Entertainment’s global business slightly by converting revenues generated by Sony Music Entertainment Japan (which would usually be straight-reported in Yen) into US dollars.
However, it provides us with a cleaner reflection of the performance of New York-based Sony Music Entertainment outside of FX distortion, because the company had to convert its US currency into Yen in the first place for Sony Corp’s results. The same is true for US-based Sony Music Publishing.
MBW believes this currency exchange system is the yardstick used internally at Sony Music Group‘s HQ in New York.
Sony’s own description of its three corporate music divisions is as follows:
- Recorded Music – Streaming includes the distribution of digital recorded music by streaming; Recorded Music – Others includes the distribution of recorded music by physical media and digital download as well as revenue derived from artists’ live performances;
- Music Publishing includes the management and licensing of the words and music of songs;
- Visual Media and Platform includes the production and distribution of animation titles, including game applications based on the animation titles, and various service offerings for music and visual products.
Within / covering the first two divisions listed above:
- Sony Music Publishing, run by CEO & Chairman Jon Platt, is Sony’s US-headquartered music publishing operation.
- Sony Music Entertainment, run by CEO Rob Stringer, is Sony’s US-headquartered recorded music operation.
- And Sony Music Group – also run by Rob Stringer, as Chairman – is Sony’s US-headquartered umbrella group for both Sony Music Entertainment and Sony Music Publishing.
Music Business Worldwide
