Universal Music Group had quite an impressive first quarter of this year. According to Vivendi’s results, Universal Music Group’s total revenues, including recorded music, publishing and other income streams reached a whopping $2.20 billion this quarter, showing an increase of 9.4% year-by-year. The label also grossed $1.8 billion in recorded music revenues for the first quarter, up 10.8%. Streaming generated $1.23 billion for Universal’s recorded music business in the three months, up 19.6% year-on-year.
This came out to be the label making approximately $13.6 million per day, or $568,000 every hour, in the first quarter. Streaming accounted for most of their recorded music revenue in the quarter including physical and digital sales plus licensing income, but not artist merchandise, which UMG counts separately. Universal Music Group generated $8.4 billion in the calendar year of 2020.
UMG recently rebranded their independent services division of UMG-owned Capitol Music Group Caroline as Virgin Music Label & Artist Services, which also launched internationally. The label also pulled their catalog from the platform Triller after it was alleged that the platform withheld payments to artists. They later announced deal with the platform’s rival, TikTok. UMG will also be moving to an IPO in early 2022, which they announced earlier this year.
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