Sony Music Yearly Revenues Up 24 Percent To $7.1B With Help From Fate Grand Order

– Fate Grand Order

Sony Music is marching forward in tandem with the rest of the industry, judging from its parent company’s earnings released on Friday. With streaming services Spotify and Apple Music leading the way, Sony Music sizeable large double-digit growth in streaming revenue as well as operating income in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018.

Here are 10 highlights worth your time:

(1) Sony Music’s revenue grew 24 percent to $7.21 billion, and operating income jumped 69 percent to $1.15 billion. See below about the components of the music division.

(2) Sony Music’s financial reports include a “visual media and platform” division in addition to recorded music, publishing, and other music-related revenues. On the strength of Fate/Grand Order, a mobile gaming app, visual media and platform revenue improved 50 percent to $2.37 billion. Remove that division, and Sony Music’s revenue finished up 14 percent to $4.9 billion. (For context, Universal Music Group improved 10 percent to $7.1 billion in the calendar year 2017.)

(3) The recorded music division’s revenue increased 15 percent to $4.03 billion after falling 8 percent in 2016 (mainly because the immense success of Adele’s 25, released November 2016, was going to make 2015 a tough year to beat).

(4) The recorded music division’s streaming revenue grew 40 percent to $1.15 billion, accounting for 25 percent of total revenue (up slightly from 23 percent in the previous year).

(5) The recorded music division’s download revenue sank 16 percent to $449 million. This decline is roughly in line with the global trend; the IFPI announced this week download sales fell 21 percent in 2017.

(6) The publishing division’s revenue increased 12 percent to $670 million.

(7) Physical format sales—CDs, vinyl releases, DVDs, Blu-ray discs,cassettes—rose 4 percent and accounted for 17 percent of total revenues. The CD-heavy Japanese market isn’t behind the improvement; physical sales dropped two percent in both the calendar year 2017 and the first quarter of 2018.

(8) P!nk’s Beautiful Trauma was Sony Music’s best-selling title—combining revenues from both albums and tracks—of the year. DJ Khaled’s Grateful and Camila Cabello’s Camila were second and third, respectively. The top-selling Japanese title was Nogizaka46.

(9) Sony revealed in its earnings call it expects a gain of roughly $900 million from both unrealized and realized gains from the sale of its stake in Spotify. Sony sold half it shares since the public listening in April.

(10) Sony Music’s “other” division’s revenue grew 12 percent to $582 million. This division includes licensing revenue (public performance, broadcast, and sync), merchandising and live performances.

Parent company Sony Corporation finished the fiscal year with $78.3 billion of revenue, up 12 percent, and a net profit of $4.5 billion, up 570 percent.

Sony Music’s fiscal fourth quarter was also strong, with revenue growing 17 percent to $1.89 billion and operating income jumping 101 percent to $283 million. The improvement in operating income included $96 million from a real estate sale.

Sony’s “games and network services” division was the company’s leading revenue generator with $17.8 billion; Sony Music ranked fifth of eight divisions, excluding the broad “all other” category. Sony’s financial services division posted the highest operating income with $1.64 billion; Sony Music ranked fourth of eighth in operating income.

The calculations for this article used a weighted average exchange rate of 110.968 yen per dollar.