Sony Music Group Yearly Revenues Top $13 Billion on Success of Streaming, Bad Bunny Album Releases

Sony Music Group reported on Friday (May 8) its sales revenues rose 21% to 570 billion Japanese yen ($3.6 billion) for the quarter ending March 31 compared to a year ago driven by higher recorded music streaming revenue, Bad Bunny and Harry Styles album sales and live events and merchandise.

Operating income for the Japan-based company’s fiscal fourth quarter came in at 132.4 billion yen ($829 million), an increase of more than 36% from last year.

Sales of Bad Bunny’s hit album DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS, Harry Styles Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally and Tate McRae‘s So Close To What helped the company generated 2,120 billion yen ($13.3 billion) for the fiscal year, which for Sony also ended on March 31, a 15% increase from the prior fiscal year. Higher revenues from streaming services in recorded music and music publishing, live events and merchandising in recorded music helped operating income reach a record high of 447 billion yen ($2.8 billion), an increase of 25%.

Streaming revenue for the full fiscal year grew to 852.7 million yen ($5.4 billion), and to 419.9 million yen ($2.6 billion) in the music publishing division, marking increases of 9% and 14% on a U.S. dollar basis respectively.

The company forecast that revenues will likely hold flat at this level in the coming fiscal year as higher streaming income is expected to offset lower concert revenue, with operating income to come off its record highs by about 11%.

The company flagged big forthcoming releases by Chris Brown, Foo Fighters and Maluma.