The three biggest music rights companies in the world all report their finances in different currencies.
US-based Warner Music Group reports in US Dollars. Sony’s music operations – part of Japan-based Sony Corp – report in Yen. And Universal Music Group, whose stock trades on Amsterdam’s Euronext, reports in Euros.
Taking quarterly financial information from each company, MBW is able to convert both Sony (Yen) and UMG (Euros) into US dollars at prevailing annual rates, giving a single-currency picture of each firm’s performance.
Below you can see a data visualization of this for the calendar year of 2023 (Jan-Dec).
Note: Sony’s music numbers do not include ‘Visual Media & Platform’ (as reported by Sony Corp as a music operation). This is to ensure a like-for-like comparison (with Warner and UMG not running comparable operations to VM&P).
In addition, Universal’s ‘merch & other’ revenues have been added to ‘Recorded Music’ to bring the comp in line with the way Warner and Sony report.
