Universal Music Posts $3.4B In Revenue For Latest Quarter, $6.7B For First Half of 2025

Universal Music Posts $3.4B In Revenue For Latest Quarter, $6.7B For First Half of 2025

Universal Music Group shared its second-quarter earnings on Thursday, reporting 2.98 billion euros ($3.4 billion) in revenue, a 1.6 percent growth from Q2 2024, with the company touting releases from Morgan Wallen, Japanese rock band Mrs. Green Apple and the soundtrack for KPop Demon Hunters.

Growth was more apparent through the first half of 2025, up about 6.4 percent to 5.88 billion euros (about $6.7 billion), with 947 million euros (just over $1 billion) in operating profit.

“It is the powerful combination of our artists’ and songwriters’ creative excellence with our strategic vision and execution that continues to deliver UMG’s strong results,” UMG CEO Lucian Grainge said in a statement.

Revenue from recorded music grew just over 1 percent year over year, up to 2.22 billion euros ($2.5 billion), but recorded revenue from music subscriptions and streaming grew 5.1 percent to 1.5 billion euros ($1.7 billion). Physical sales fell 13 percent this quarter, down to about 310 million euros ($354 million.

Publishing revenues grew 11.5 percent to about 570 million euros ($651 million), with digital publishing revenues in particular growing nearly 13 percent to 351 million euros ($401 million).

“The breadth and diversity of our business has positioned us to deliver solid growth in revenue and Adjusted EBITDA again this quarter,” UMG COO Boyd Muir said in a statement. “We remain confident in our growth trajectory as we continue to invest with a focus on maximizing long-term value and driving attractive returns in the coming years.”

During UMG’s earnings call Thursday morning, Grainge addressed the European Commission’s investigation of UMG subsidiary Virgin Music group’s proposed acquisition of Downtown Music Holdings, saying that “we remain confident that the transaction will will pass that review and will be completed before the end of the year.” The deal, which would give UMG ownership of music distributors like CD Baby and Fuga, has faced criticism from the indie music industry, who argue the acquisition would be anti-competitive. On the call Thursday, Grainge called the artist services space “highly competitive.”

UMG’s earnings report comes 10 days after the company had filed for a U.S. stock listing, a second listing aside from UMG’s current listing on the Euronext Amsterdam exchange. Muir said on the call Thursday that the company was unable to provide further details at this time.

The earnings report comes three days after UMG announced that board member Cyrille Bolloré was stepping down from his position.