Overall, UMG revenues still drop

Mar 1, 2010 15:43 GMT  ·  By

The recording industry isn't seeing the best of days, at least that's what it keeps saying. The latest numbers coming from official sources show that, maybe, things aren't so bad as they'd like everyone to believe. Media giant Vivendi has released its financial results for 2009 and nestled in there are some stats about its music division, Universal Music Group (UMG), the largest music label in the world. Turns out digital sales increased 8.4 percent in 2009, though that wasn't enough to stem the tide of the decreasing sales of physical products, aka CDs.

Overall, UMG sales were down 6.2 percent in 2009 from the previous year to €4.363 billion. This marks another year of declining sales for UMG and the recording industry as a whole. There isn't any sign that this will change anytime soon, but, maybe, the label will start moving more aggressively in areas where there is growth and where there is still a lot of money to be made.

There were some moves on that front last year, with UMG citing Spotify's paid version, available on mobile devices as well. This isn't much of a surprise, since the label is a shareholder in Spotify. Another property touted by UMG is Vevo, the recently launched US music video site that has gained quite an audience in just a couple of months after launch, thanks in no small part to YouTube.

"Digital sales grew 8.4% with very strong growth in online sales tempered by softening demand for mobile products in the United States and Japan. Music publishing revenues increased 1.7% and merchandising grew 24.6% reflecting the successful integration of that business into UMG. However, recorded music sales declined due to a decrease in demand for physical products and lower license income," Vivendi said in the press release.

"Best sellers for the year included new releases from Black Eyed Peas, U2 and Eminem and from Lady Gaga and Taylor Swift. Local best sellers included titles from Japan’s GreeeeN, Dreams Come True and Masaharu Fukuyama, as well as Germany’s Rammstein, and France’s Mylène Farmer."