Universal Music Group (UMG) is finishing 2023 with a bang. The world’s largest music rightsholder ended its trading day today (December 12) on the Amsterdam Euronext with its highest share price of the year to date.

According to Euronext data, UMG’s share price today translated into a market cap valuation of EUR €46.944 billion. In US Dollar terms at current exchange rates, that’s worth USD $50.68 billion.This is Universal’s highest share price since December 7, 2021 (€25.78)

Universal’s current stock price (€25.77) is up by 12.39% year-to-date. That growth has been helped by positive analyst reaction to UMG’s efforts around the ‘artist-centric’ royalty model – including a partnership with Deezer that has changed how artists are paid by the platform.

The company’s ‘artist-centric’ philosophy – first laid out by Chairman/CEO, Sir Lucian Grainge, in January – also appears to have had an inluence on changes coming to Spotify‘s royalty model in Q1 2024.

Universal has enjoyed a robust financial year so far: In the first nine months of 2023, UMG’s overall revenues hit EUR €7.901 billion, up by 9.4% YoY at constant currency. In terms of recorded music streaming revenues – including ad-supported and subscription – UMG generated EUR

Sony Music Group delivered strong double-digit growth in the final quarter of 2023. Sony’s global music rights operation – across recorded music and music publishing – generated USD $2.52 billion in the three months to end of December.

That’s according to MBW’s calculations based on Sony Group Corp’s calendar Q4 2023 (fiscal Q3 2023) results, as announced by the Japanese firm today (February 14). The $2.52 billion figure was up 14.0% year-on-year (vs. calendar Q4 2022) at US dollar-converted constant currency.

This isn’t a perfect system; it risks overplaying Sony Music Entertainment’s global business slightly by converting revenues generated by Sony Music Entertainment Japan (which would usually be straight-reported in Yen) into US dollars.

However, it provides us with a cleaner reflection of the performance of New York-based Sony Music Entertainment outside of FX distortion, because the company had to convert its US currency into Yen in the first place for Sony Corp’s results.

Sony’s own description of its three corporate music divisions is as follows: Recorded Music – Streaming includes the distribution of digital recorded music by streaming; Recorded Music – Others includes the distribution of recorded music by physical media and digital download.

Music Publishing includes the management and licensing of the words and music of songs; Visual Media and Platform includes the production and distribution of animation titles, including game applications based on the animation titles.