Significant growth in the global music copyright business
According to MBW calculations, the Global Music Copyright business has achieved a noteworthy financial milestone in the calendar year 2024.
The combined global recorded music and music publishing companies generated 10.30 billion dollars for the 12-month period from January to December last year.
This translates to a 10.6% year – or 984 million dollars – increase compared to 2023. This marks the first time the annual figure has exceeded 10 billion dollars.
Analysis of Sony’s music revenue
MBW calculated the global music rights turnover over recent calendar years by converting the quarterly results of music from Japanese yen to US dollars at the current metering rates provided. Sony Group Corp was a key player in this analysis.
In these calculations, we included Sony’s Global Music and Music Publishing revenue, but excluded turnover from the company’s Visual Media & Platform sector (VM & P), which operates in mobile games and animation projects within Sony’s broader music division.
A snapshot of Sony’s music performance reveals it to be quite similar to the music sectors of Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group.
(Sony’s “auxiliary” music rights enterprises—including music merchandising and licensing—are recorded under their income for “non-recorded music,” as indicated in the table below.)
Sony’s global music operations generated 7.88 billion dollars in 2024, while its music publishing division, led by Sony Music Publishing, produced 2.42 billion dollars.
The significant acquisitions made by Sony over the past few years have contributed to the impressive growth of its music segment.
As previously noted by MBW, the Sony Music Group—led by chairman Rob Stringer—has spent more than 6 billion dollars on acquisitions over the last decade.
Sony financed these transactions both directly and through partnerships with companies like Apollo and Eldridge Industries.
Some of the most significant purchases in Sony’s recent history include three acquisitions made in the last 18 months: a comprehensive Queen rights catalog (estimated to have cost 1.2 billion dollars), the Pink Floyd record catalog (approximately 400 million dollars), and 50% of Michael Jackson’s rights catalog (valued between 600-750 million dollars).
Under the leadership of Stringer, Sony has also invested nine-figure sums on companies like Aval (430 million dollars in 2022) and Brazil’s Som Livre (255 million dollars in 2022), along with further investments in firms like Rimas Entertainment.
Other notable transactions over the past decade include the full acquisition of Sony/ATV (2016) and Garden (2015).
Among all the large-scale acquisitions completed by Sony, one stands out in the music industry: 2.6 billion dollars for 70% of EMI Music Publishing (EMP), which Sony did not previously own.
(Originally, Sony purchased a 30% stake in EMP in 2012, subsequently spending 2.3 billion dollars for the 60% share held by Mubadala and an additional 300 million dollars for the 10% stake owned by the Jackson estate in 2018. Stringer and his executive team at Sony Music Group defended both transactions.)
Sony’s EMP acquisition, finalized in November 2018, is regarded as the largest acquisition made by the company during Kenichiro Yoshida’s tenure as CEO.
Yoshida assumed the role of CEO of Sony Corp in early 2018. As of April 1 this year, he will step down from this position, with Hiroki Totoki, the current CFO of Sony Group Corp, taking over.
However, Yoshida will continue to serve as chairman of Sony Group Corp.
In a call with investors today, Yoshida stated: “The most remarkable investment made during my time or during the leadership of Sony was the acquisition of EMI Music Publishing in 2018.”
Yoshida highlighted that Sony invested approximately 4 billion dollars in total to fully acquire EMP. He credited Hiroki Totoki with “primarily” handling negotiations, likely with Mubadala, to finalize the EMP purchase.
“Music has always been a foundational aspect of Sony,” added Yoshida. “The name Sony is derived from the Latin word ‘sonus’… (which led to developments in) sound and tape recorders, as well as the Walkman and Discman. The acquisition of EMI Music Publishing reflects our origins in mergers and acquisitions.”
Other major acquisitions carried out by Sony Group Corp under Yoshida’s leadership include purchasing the video game developer Insomniac Games (for $229 million in 2019), the digital television provider Crunchyroll (for 1.175 billion dollars in 2021), and the video game developer Bungie (for 3.7 billion dollars in 2022).
As MBW reported earlier today, the Global Music Rights revenue amounted to 2.7 billion dollars in Q4 2024.
This figure represents a 7.1% increase year-over-year (compared to Sony’s figure reported in Q4 2023), measured in constant currency converted to US dollars.
