You stream, I stream, we all stream to find the latest song or album we are looking for. We, the streaming consumer aided Universal Music Group in 2016 as streamed music drove profits for the music conglomerate. According to their parent company, Vivendi, across recorded music, publishing, and other revenue streams, UMG’s overall revenues rose to $5.57 billion. This number is up 4.4% from 2015’s $5.41 billion.
Streaming significantly impacted UMG’s revenues in 2016. The company’s revenues from streaming grew 58% in 2016. Under the leadership of Jody Gerson, Universal Music Publishing Group added the catalogues of Prince, Pearl Jam, R.EM, and various others while extending the contracts of Adele, Nicki Minaj, Coldplay, and several other chart topping artists and producers. UMG’s top sellers for the year included new releases from the record breaking Rihanna, the consistent Drake and pop senssation, Ariana Grande.
While these aforementioned aided UMG with their growth through streaming, there were still big declines in album and download sales. Album sales saw a 15% drop, while download sales also saw a 29% decline. UMG also saw increases in recorded music, and merchandising as well but streaming was by far the most powerful force in 2016.
