SONY MUSIC PROFIT UP 28% IN Q1

While Sony received $768m when it sold a portion of its shares in Spotify on the streaming service’s first day on the NYSE, the company’s current stake in Spotify is sitting at $862m.

The sale resulted in resulted in a pre-tax unrealized gain $547m. With its ownership stake below 5%, Sony no longer is required to list any of its sales of Spotify stock. The sale of the Spotify stock and the success of PlayStation has raised the company’s prediction for the current fiscal year to hit $4.5b in net income.

The disclosure was made Tuesday when Sony released its financial results for the fiscal quarter that ended 6/30.

With streaming services driving an increase in royalties, Sony Music’s operating profit was up 28% to $2.94b. This was despite recorded music revenue being up less than 2% in the quarter at $914.2m, which the company partially attributed to a change in accounting procedures. Music publishing operating income was up 29%, to nearly $197m.

The division’s revenue of $1.1b is up nearly 4% over the first quarter of fiscal 2017.

Streaming was responsible for 52% of the revenue ($478m), a 36% gain, while physical music dropped by nearly a third to $206m and downloads were down 17.6%to $98m.

Sony Corporation of America also announced the acquisition of the final piece of EMI Music Publishing from the Estate of Michael Jackson.