UMG Drives Revenue For Vivendi In Q3

PARIS (CelebrityAccess) — Shares in Vivendi rose on Friday after the French media conglomerate reported improved revenue and said that its potential sale of label giant Universal Music Group was attracting interest from buyers.

In its latest financial filings on Thursday, Vivendi reported that it’s third-quarter revenue increased by 16.7% to €3.97 billion ($4.4 billion) when compared against the same period in 2018, bolstered by growth from UMG.

Individually, UMG posted revenue of €5.058 billion ($5.646 billion), a year-over-year increase of 17.5% at constant currency and 22.7% on an actual basis for the first 9 months of the year.

UMG’s recorded music best sellers for the first nine months of 2019 included new releases from Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Post Malone and the Japanese band King & Prince, as well as continued sales of the soundtrack from A Star Is Born and multiple albums from Queen.

Taylor Swift posted the biggest sales week for any album in the United States since the release of her last album Reputation in 2017, selling nearly 700,000 copies in traditional album sales and surpassing 1 million in total consumption, according to UMG.

Music publishing revenues grew by 9.7% during the period, while merchandising and other revenues increased by 82.4% at constant currency, the company said.

Vivendi said talks with Chinese e-commerce and music streamer Tencent for a sale of as much as 20% of UMG is still underway with a potential valuation for the label group of as much as €30 billion euros ($33.4 billion) but recently suspended negotiations for six months for unspecified reasons.