Sony Music Entertainment generated 134.83bn Yen ($1.24bn) from streaming music in calendar 2016 – and 40.65bn Yen ($372m) in the three months to end of December alone. That means Sony’s recorded music division is now earning approximately $124m every month, $31m every week, $4m every day and $167,000 every hour from the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. This quarterly streaming haul of 40.65bn Yen was up 30.3% on the 31.2bn Yen ($286m) recorded in the same period of 2015.
Physical sales were still the top money-maker for Sony Music labels across the whole of 2016, but only just. CD and vinyl generated 137.23bn Yen ($1.26bn) in the year – 1.8% (around $21m) more than streaming. In the three months to end of December, which includes the bumper Christmas gifting period, Sony’s physical recorded music sales stood at 44.97bn Yen ($412m) down 24.6% on the equivalent quarter in 2015.
As for download? Anyone whose business is still heavily reliant on iTunes may be about to wince. Over the course of 2016, downloads accounted for 65.62bn Yen ($605m), or less than a fifth of Sony’s total recorded music revenues. And in calendar Q4 last year, downloads accounted for 14.74bn Yen ($135m) – down no less than 40.5% year-on-year, while contributing just 14.7% of Sony Music’s sales/streaming business in the three months.
