EMI has emerged victorious as the No.1 record company of 2024, Music Week can reveal.
The Universal Music UK label topped the market share rankings with a 10.5% share of combined consumption (All Music – All Albums), based on Official Charts Company data.
It follows the release earlier this week of the UK market data for 2024 by the BPI.
Universal Music UK remains the corporate group market leader with year-on-year consumption growth of 10% (slightly ahead of the market) and a market share of 36.2%. Sony Music (19.4% share) and Warner Music (15.4%) followed in second and third place.
It is the third consecutive year that EMI Records has come out on top. The label was run by co-presidents Rebecca Allen (now president of Universal’s Audience & Media Division) and Jo Charrington (now Capitol president) for most of the year.
However, it will be all change on the market shares in 2025 following the merger of EMI and Island as part of a major corporate restructure to become Island EMI Label Group, now headed by president Louis Bloom. Polydor Label Group, meanwhile, now incorporates Capitol (formerly under the EMI banner) and 0207 Def Jam.
EMI won the Record Company trophy at the Music Week Awards 2024. Their market share victory in 2024 was down to the consistent success of artists including Taylor Swift. The Tortured Poets Department was the year’s biggest album with 783,820 units.
RCA, headed by co-presidents Glyn Aikins and Stacey Tang, was in second place for combined consumption in 2024 with a 10% share. Significantly, though, the Sony Music UK company did wrestle back its crown as the market leader based on track streams with a 10.8% share.
RCA had a domestic breakthrough success with BRIT Rising Star winner Myles Smith (whose Stargazing has 1,012,699 sales as the 12th biggest track of 2024), as well as a strong campaign from Beyonce with No.1 album Cowboy Carter (No.43 overall, 137,499 units) and single Texas Hold ‘Em (No.14 overall, 959,373 units). There was also the continuing streaming impact of SZA, who returned to the Top 3 on Friday with a new edition of SOS (No.26 overall with 196,197 units in 2024).
Wham!’s festive No.1 with Last Christmas has also seen RCA amass significant streaming volume. The label also had a Christmas No.1 contender with Tom Grennan’s new song It Can’t Be Christmas, thanks to its partnership with Sony Music frontline label, Insanity Records.
Polydor, headed by president Ben Mortimer, had a stellar year with artists including Sabrina Carpenter, Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo and a catalogue hit in the form of Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder On The Dancefloor.
Polydor was No.3 on combined consumption (All Music – All Albums) with a 9.9% market share. Consumption for the Universal Music label was up 18% year-on-year – double the overall market rate. It also finished the year in a strong position: Q4, Polydor was the No.1 label during Q4 ahead of RCA and EMI.
Sabrina Carpenter had the third biggest album of 2024 with Short N’ Sweet (372,956 units), while its three chart-topping singles were among the biggest of the year – Espresso (No.3 overall, 1,751,273 units), Please Please Please (No.10, 1,142,890) and Taste (No.21, 792,484).
Island Records – A&R winners at the Music Week Awards under president Louis Bloom – also had a great year, with a combined consumption increase across all formats of 15% (versus 9% for the overall market), securing a No.4 market shares ranking (7.9%).
The label had a run of hit singles and albums from stars including Noah Kahan (Stick Season was the year’s biggest track with consumption of 1,988,798 units), UK-signed Irish artist Hozier, Chappell Roan and Post Malone, as well as a UK breakthrough with The Last Dinner Party.
Island had three of the top six albums with The Weeknd’s The Highlight’s leading the way at No.2 (403,181 units in 2024), followed by Noah Kahan’s Stick Season LP (No.4, 346,286) and Chappell Roan’s The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess (No.6, 295,517).
Following its merger as a label group in 2023, Warner-Parlophone, headed by president Joe Kentish, is now No.5 in the market shares for combined consumption with a 7.3% share. Parlophone (headed by MD Jen Ivory) had a big year with breakthrough act Artemas (No.17 overall with I Like The Way You Kiss Me on 845,583 units), while Coldplay had the biggest album of Q4 with Moon Music (287,167 sales, No.9 overall in 2024).
Warner Records had the second biggest single of 2024 with Benson Boone’s Beautiful Things (1,787,692) and the ninth biggest with Austin by Dasha (1,147,814).
The label also hit No.1 with Dua Lipa’s album Radical Optimism (No.40 overall, 141,557 units) and finished the year with a big Q4 record from Linkin Park, From Zero (No.16 in Q4 with 68,632 units).
Columbia made No.6 in the market share rankings (5.8% share). The Sony Music label, headed by president Dipesh Parmar, had a big hit via its Ministry Of Sound label with 2023 single Prada by Casso, Raye and D-Block Europe (No.13, 967,010 units). Columbia also had a big Q4 album with Tyler, The Creator’s Chromakopia (No.15 in Q4, 71,947 units).
Warner Music’s Atlantic label, headed by co-presidents Briony Turner and Ed Howard, was No.7 (5.5% share), following the success of Charli XCX’s Brat (No.8 overall, 288,989 units). Teddy Swims’ I’ve Tried Everything But Therapy – Part 1 finished at No.34 (152,205 units), thanks to the album’s huge single Lose Control (1,724,876, No.4 overall in 2024).
Read insights from dozens of top industry executives in Music Week’s special 2024 Review.
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