Q3 Music Earnings Roundup: Here’s What Every Company Made (Updating)
Billboard ·
A rundown of publicly traded companies’ results for the quarter ending Sept. 30, from Spotify to Universal Music Group and more.
The broader economy’s struggles with increasing prices, worsening consumer sentiment and fears of an AI bubble are not far from music industry executives’ minds this quarterly earnings season. Music companies have been cutting expenses, building up their available cash and prioritizing the music fans and audio entertainment subscribers who deliver the most to their bottom line.
Spotify — the biggest publicly traded music company, with a $122 billion market cap — showed it has not suffered any loss of subscriber growth momentum, even amid global price increases. But to keep growing, executives said they will continue to enhance the platform’s premium tier with add-on subscription offerings like audiobook subscriptions and new features like Reserved, while also adding value to the free tier.
Also on the streaming front, Deezer continued letting low-margin legacy partnership deals roll off in the third quarter in favor of higher-value direct relationships with subscribers. That focus, along with attention to costs, has the company looking ahead to a third profitable year.
SiriusXM focused on stabilizing self-pay subscriptions (+5,000 net adds) and driving down churn to 1.5%, while Universal Music Group (UMG) honed in on integrating Downtown Music Group and reviving its subscription and streaming revenue. UMG’s efforts paid off, as the company reported that revenue from subscriptions and streaming grew by 8.4% on an organic basis and 17.9% when including Downtown’s contribution.
Deezer and SiriusXM raised their full-year profitability guidance, while Spotify delivered record gross margins (33%) and free cash flow generation. UMG does not provide quarterly or annual guidance for its key financial metrics, but its chief digital officer, Michael Nash , said he believes the music industry is on track to hit 1 billion streaming subscribers by 2028 and 1.5 billion subscribers by the middle of the next decade. That volume increase, Nash said, will be the most significant driver of subscription revenue growth for UMG in 2027.
Nonetheless, all of these companies are keeping a watchful eye on operating expenses. SiriusXM slashed market spend to make up for revenue stagnation, and UMG recently rolled out another raft of layoffs related to a previously announced cost-cutting plan meant to deliver 250 million euros ($271 million) in annual savings by the end of 2026.
Next week, Sony Group, Sphere Entertainment Company, Madison Square Garden Entertainment, Reservoir Media and SM Entertainment report earnings, among others.
Here is a roundup of the key takeaways from companies’ earnings so far. We will update this list as more results are reported.