(Reuters) -Universal Music Group NV, the world’s largest record label, on Thursday beat Wall Street’s projections for revenue in its fourth quarter, though fell shy on adjusted pre-tax earnings.
The company said top sellers in the quarter included Drake, Seventeen and Taylor Swift’s “Midnights,” which made history by occupying all top 10 slots in Billboard’s Hot 100 list of most popular songs.
Adjusted pre-tax earnings, or EBITDA, were 620 million euros compared with $568 million euros in the fourth quarter of 2021. Analysts had forecast EBITDA of 621.25 million euros, according to Refinitiv data.
Revenue rose 16.7% to 2.94 billion euros, with streaming revenue up 13.3% from a year ago. That compares with analyst forecasts of 2.87 billion euros.
Subscription and streaming revenue, which accounts for more than half of Universal Music’s revenue from recorded music, was up 18.5% from a year ago to 1.44 billion euros.
Music Publishing generated 530 million euros in revenue, up nearly 30% from a year ago.
The label’s merchandising business brought in 181 million euros, a gain of 28% from a year earlier.
(Reporting by Dawn Chmielewski in Los Angeles)
