The number for fiscal 2016 are just in and per Music Business Worldwide, SONY Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group have gained on Universal Music Group, the largest record label in the world. All in all, it was a good year for the recording industry with both record labels and music publishers reporting growth on all fronts thanks due to the huge rise in streaming which represented 34% of total label revenue last year – an 11% increase from the year before.
Before we get into the majors, the indies had a good year as well increasing their revenue by 6% despite their market share decreased slightly by less than 0.5% from 31.6 to 31.3. That being said, independent labels who have distribution ties through to the major labels are not tallied as independent records making the true market share for independent labels much higher.
For another year Universal finished as the world’s leading music group in both revenue and global share – despite SONY and Warner both making gains in terms of market share – finishing with 28.9%, a minor decrease compared to its 30.2% market share in 2015. SONY increased its market share over 1% point finishing with 22.4% of the market last year while Warner made slight gains too from 16.8 to 17.4% of the market.
When it comes to publishing, SONY/ATV leads the way again with 23% of this year’s market despite a decrease of 1.3% from the year before. Universal Music Publishing and Warner Chapell both made minor gains, but it was the independent publishing groups that led the way here increasing from 49.4 to 50.1% over the market.
If you’re interested in more numbers, you can check out the full breakdown from MIDiA Research below.
