While much of the focus in the industry today is on Music Week Awards Strat winner Max Lousada, there’s also plenty to celebrate for Sony Music CEO Rob Stringer after his first year in charge.
The major’s parent company Sony Corporation has issued its financial results for the full year ending March 31, 2018. Recorded music performed strongly with revenue hitting 446.96 billion yen (£2.97bn), up 14.9% (although currency fluctuations boosted that number).
Streaming revenue for the year totalled 197.44bn yen (£1.31bn), increasing to 44.17% as a proportion of the total (a figure that beats the IFPI global average of 38%).
While streaming revenue increased by 40.42%, physical revenue also edged up 3.2% to 135.13bn yen (£897.01m). However, that result is – much like the BPI’s surprise increase in physical in its recent trade revenue report – a likely one-off; in this case it’s related to physical sales in Japan. Physical still represents 30.23% of Sony’s recorded music sales. Download revenue slipped by 16.1%.
Sony Corp’s music segment (including publishing and visual media) reported revenues of 800bn yen (£5.32bn), an increase of 23.51% (22% on a constant currency basis). It is forecasting a 2018 total of 750bn yen (£4.99bn), a drop of 6.25%, partly due to prior year gains in property transactions.
The biggest-selling album for Sony over the full year was Pink’s Beautiful Trauma, while releases by DJ Khaled, Camila Cabello, Harry Styles, Khalid, Rag’N’Bone Man and Justin Timberlake also racked up big sales internationally. Timberlake had the biggest seller of the first three months of 2018.
The fiscal Q4 figures for recorded music reveal a promising start to the year for the major with revenues up 15.9% to 109.72bn yen (£729.34m).
For Sony’s first fiscal quarter of 2018 (ending June 30), Sony singled out noteworthy releases from The Chainsmokers, Leon Bridges, Manic Street Preachers and Tinashe.
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