Universal Music Group posted strong results from 2024 in earnings announced Thursday, with a 6.5% rise in revenue over 2023 and an 8.2% increase in recorded music subscription revenue (despite a 5.1% drop in streaming revenue from last year), contributing to $12.8 billion in total revenue.
The company’s bottom line was also enhanced by thousands of layoffs that took place in a “strategic redesign” throughout 2024 as it continued to emphasize its future growth strategies of a superfan focus and “Streaming 2.0,” although executives shied away from specifics of the plans on the call and instead referred to presentations during its “Investor Day” last fall.
Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 13.8% to $2.88 billion, which chairman-CEO Lucian Grainge (pictured above) pointed to on the earnings call as a growth area every year since the company went public in 2021. He also listed an impressive number of hit artists for UMG, the world’s largest music company, singling out “the two biggest breakthrough artists” of the year, both of whom release music through the company’s Island subsidiary: Sabrina Carpenter and Grammy best new artist winner Chappell Roan. Other top sellers for the year included Taylor Swift, Billie Eilish and the “Wicked” soundtrack.
According to the report, recorded music subscription revenue grew 7.9% year-over-year, or 9.0% in constant currency, while streaming revenue declined 5.1% year-over-year, or 4.1% in constant currency. Recorded music subscription revenue grew 8.2% year-over-year, or 9.1% in constant currency and streaming revenue declined 0.8% year-over-year, but grew 0.1% in constant currency.
Music publishing’s full-year revenue was up 8.4% (9.0% in constant currency) to $2.29 billion) with adjusted EBITDA rising 8.7% to $553 million). Digital revenue was up 12.4% to $1.37 billion and comprised 60% of publishing revenue. Synch revenue dropped 0.4% to $274 million.
The company also pointed to success in the “Introduction of Streaming 2.0… a new era of innovation, consumer segmentation, geographic expansion, greater consumer value and ARPU growth for subscription music”; investments in such international markets as Mavin Global (Nigeria), RS Group (Thailand) and Outdustry (China/India), and notably its focus on growing its artist and label-services business, particularly via the acquisition of the remaining share of [PIAS] and its $775 million agreement to acquire Downtown Music Holdings.
It also pointed to “responsible” AI initiatives including collaborations with Klay Vision Inc., SoundLabs, and ProRata.ai, with additional ones in process; published the Principles for Music Creation with AI with Roland Corporation.
“It’s the stickiness of our music and our libraries and our catalog and our global reach [that enables the company] to actually build the ecosystem,” Grainge said on the call.
