Sony music reports huge operating income gain from EMI closure

April 26, 2019

Sony‘s music operations reported a small increase of 1.3 percent in revenue in the year ending March 31, 2019 but its operating budget saw a massive gain of 81.9 percent thanks to the November closing of EMI.

The company’s operating budget went from $1.15 billion USD to $2.01 billion marking an extraordinary increase.

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The best selling music from their third quarter came from Travis Scott, Camila Cabello, Luke Combs, George Ezra, Calvin Harris, Kane Brown, A$AP Rocky and Chris Brown.

Top-sellers in the final quarter included the Backstreet Boys, Future, 21 Savage and Bring Me The Horizon.

Without the inflated numbers from acquiring EMI, the company’s operating budget would have been $1.04 billion USD.

Despite the increase following EMI’s closure, Sony’s sales continue to face troubles with declining CD sales.

Luckily for Sony, their streaming sales saw a 15.2 percent growth. That growth equates to a $271 million revenue increase bringing streaming sales to $2.05 billion from $1.78 billion.

Physical sales dropping $411 million brings Sony’s revenue in that department down to $807.8 million. Digital downloads also saw a decrease from $450 million to $354.1 million, bringing their total revenue loss to $506 million.

Streaming is clearly the future of the music industry as it continues bringing in more sales each year. Sony music receives 55.3 percent of its income from streaming now compared to just 44.2 percent last year.

Physical sales fell from 30.2 percent to 21 percent of overall revenue while digital downloads went from 15.3 percent to 9.2 percent. Other income streams from their music operations account for 16.5 percent of revenue now compared to 14.9 percent the year before.

Sony/ATV and Sony Music Japan’s publishing units saw a 43.5 percent gain from the EMI acquisition while their visual media and mobile games department saw a slight decline of $20 million.

What do you think of the increase in streaming sales? Let us know in the comments below.