Sony’s global music rights operation – across recorded music and music publishing – generated USD $1.988 billion in the three months to end of March 2022.
That’s according to MBW’s calculations based on Sony Group Corp’s fiscal Q4 (calendar Q1) results, as announced by the Japanese firm earlier today (March 10).
The $1.988 billion figure was up 13.5% year-on-year (vs. calendar Q1 2021) at US dollar-converted constant currency.
In monetary terms, Sony’s overall music rights operation (recorded music plus music publishing) generated approximately $237 million more in calendar Q1 2022 than in the prior year quarter.
[Note: Corporately speaking, Sony Group’s global music operation includes recorded music, plus music publishing, plus ‘Visual Media & Platform’. The final category primarily covers mobile games and animation projects, and has been omitted from the revenue calculations in this analysis.]
Sony’s global recorded music operation generated USD $1.523 billion in calendar Q1 2021 – according to MBW’s calculations – up 13.4% YoY versus the equivalent quarterly period of the prior year.
Within that calendar Q1 2022 global recorded music result, streaming generated $1.038 billion, up 20.2% YoY.
In monetary terms, Sony’s global recorded music operation generated approximately $180 million more in calendar Q1 2022 than in the prior year quarter.
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As MBW has previously reported, in the full calendar year of 2021, Sony’s global music rights operation (recorded music plus music publishing) generated USD $7.49 billion in revenues.
That figure was up 23.9% on the equivalent figure from the prior calendar year.
In terms of recorded music only, Sony generated USD $5.77 billion in calendar 2021 – up 25.2% YoY.
And in terms of music publishing only, Sony generated $1.72 billion in calendar 2021 – up 19.7% YoY.
Because Sony Corp’s calendar Q1 results are also its fiscal Q4 results, the company today issued some interesting profit numbers for its corporate Music division in the 12 months to end of March 2022.
(The following figures include Sony’s operations across Recorded Music, Music Publishing plus Visual Media & Platform. Sony doesn’t break out profits for its corporate Music division in the same way it does revenue, so for divisional operating income VM&P cannot be extracted/omitted.)
In FY2021 (the 12 months to end of March 2022), Sony’s corporate Music division posted annual operating income of 210.93 billion Yen (USD $1.88bn).
That represented an operating margin of 18.9%, from total divisional annual revenues of 1.117 trillion Yen (USD $9.95 billion.)
In its forecast for the 12 months ahead (ending March 2023), Sony said of its corporate Music division: “Sales are expected to increase year-on-year mainly due to higher sales for Recorded Music and Music Publishing primarily resulting from an expected increase in revenues from streaming services and the impact of foreign exchange rates, as well as the impact of the acquisition of 
For this analysis, MBW has calculated Sony’s financials from Japanese Yen into US dollars at the following prevailing exchange rates in each quarter, as confirmed by Sony generated $1.99bn from recorded music and music publishing in calendar Q1, up 13.5%
