Streaming made over $1.1 billion for Sony Music this quarter

Sony Music’s recorded music generated AU$1.72 billion in the first quarter of 2021 — and 64% of that (or about $1.1 billion) came from streaming.

These were according to figures released by its parent company Sony Group Corp.

Revenue was up 25% (or an extra $346.1million in the Sony coffers), and two Australian acts were in its Top 10 of best sellers so far this year.

While Harry Styles’ Fine Line led the revenue generation for the quarter, LA-based Sydney-raised The Kid LAROI’s F*CK LOVE (Savage) was in second place.

Others were Foo Fighters’ Medicine At Midnight, Doja Cat’s Hot Pink, Luke Combs’ What You See Is What You Get, Miley Cyrus’ Plastic Hearts, Polo G’s THE GOAT, Travis Scott’s ASTROWORLD, 24kGoldn’s El Dorado and AC/DC’s POWER UP.

Sony Group Corp also released the figures for its full length fiscal 2020, which ended at the end of March, 2021.

For the 12 months, recorded music operation generated $6.26 billion, with $4 billion of this coming from streaming after its 22% rise.

Q1 Breakdown

Aside from streaming, physical was up 13.9% from Q1 2020 to $287.5 million, downloads to $102.8 million and other assorted revenue streams were $234.3 million.

Sony Music Publishing and Sony Japan’s publishing operation produced revenue of $525.2 million up 11% from the prior year.

Streaming generated $246 million for publishing.

2020 Breakdown

Sony’s music operations – which includes Sony Music Entertainment, Sony Music Japan and the Visual Media/Platform – made $11.2 billion, a 13.3% increase from 2019's revenue of $9.91 billion.

Streaming made up 66.3% with physical accounting for 15.5% and downloads at 5.5%.

Publishing grew 2% to $1.9 billion.