Sony Corp has reported revenue up 11% year-on-year to 202.3 billion yen (£1.53bn) at its music division. It includes revenues from Sony Corp’s visual media segment.
Operating income increased by 6.2bn yen (£47m) to 38.3bn yen (£290m).
The increase in revenues was attributed to higher sales for music publishing resulting from the consolidation of EMI Music Publishing, as well as streaming revenues from recorded music. Publishing and recorded music have now been brought together as Sony Music Group.
Based on external sales, recorded music brought in 111.96bn yen (£848.4m) in Q1, a year-on-year increase of 12.25%. Streaming revenue hit 66.482bn yen (£503.8m), up 27.45%. Streaming now makes up 59.38% or recorded music revenue at Sony.
Physical music sales were flat at 21.953bn yen (£503.8m). Last week UMG reported an increase in physical sales.
The biggest-selling music project for the quarter was Khalid’s Free Spirit, followed by Lil Nas X’s Old Town Road, Pink’s Hurts To Be Human, Bruce Springsteen’s Western Stars and DJ Khaled’s Father Of Asahd. Other big-selling artists included Travis Scott, Chris Brown, Vampire Weekend, Luke Combs and Beyonce.
Upcoming releases for the next six months include records by Blink-182, Bryson Tiller, Celine Dion, G-Eazy, Miley Cyrus, Miranda Lambert, Raphael Saadiq, Rick Ross, The Chainsmokers and Tool.
The number of songs in the music publishing catalogue now stands at 4.53m. Thanks to the contribution of EMI, Q1 publishing sales increased by 83.05% to hit 39.29bn yen (£297.7m).
The full year forecast for the music division is revenues of 830bn yen (£6.29bn), a 2.8% increase on the 2018 result.
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