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Technology Music Streaming Sony Music

Sony Music streams ahead as cloud services top downloads

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By John Glenday, Reporter

November 2, 2016 | 2 min read

Sony Music is coining it in from the growing popularity of music streaming as the format becomes the divisions biggest money spinner, now accounting for 42% of all revenues.

This growth has come at the expense of downloads which have suffered a corresponding dip to just 18% of revenues although physical sales remained steady at 40.5%.

Over the second quarter streaming added $303m to Sony’s coffers, a 26.6 % year-on-year increase whilst downloads brought in just $132m after contracting by a massive 31.6% from the same period in 2015.

This has been fuelled by a licensing deal with SoundCloud which gives artists signed by Sony's three labels the opportunity to make money on the streaming site.

When licensing agreements such as this are factored into the equation streaming becomes an even more important share of Sony Music’s business, taking a 35% slice of revenues versus just 15% for downloads.

Despite this success Sony’s recorded music revenues actually declined slightly over the period, dropping one per cent year-on-year to $865m on the back of a deleterious exchange rate between the Japanese Yen and US dollar.

Technology Music Streaming Sony Music

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