Welcome to Music Business Worldwide’s weekly round-up – where we make sure you caught the five biggest stories to hit our headlines over the past seven days. MBW’s round-up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their income and reduce their touring costs.

Universal Music Group‘s first quarterly earnings call as a public company went off without a hitch this week… almost.

At the end of the call on Wednesday (October 27), one particularly offhand analyst attempted to personally quiz UMG Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge over “whether he would like to buy some shares” in UMG.

This rude-ish curveball was expertly batted away by Universal’s CFO Boyd Muir.

It was impossible for that minor sneak attack to cast a shadow on the rest of the hour-long call, though – because the numbers were every bit as good as we’ve come to expect.

Across all of its divisions (including recorded music, publishing and more) UMG posted revenues in the three months to end of September (Q3) of €2.153 billion, up 17.4% year on year.

At the start of the call, Grainge delivered a rousing speech in which he hailed the “beginning of a new wave of growth and evolution” in the music business, and added that “UMG is the driving force of progress and innovation in the industry”.

This week also brought news of a standout calendar Q3 quarter for Sony Music Group.

According to MBW’s calculations, across recorded music and publishing, Sony generated $1.849 billion globally in the quarter.

That was up 19.5% on the $1.547 billion these two divisions jointly generated in the prior year quarter.

Elsewhere this week, UnitedMasters raised $50 million in new funding, valuing the independent artist distribution platform at $550 million, while on the latest episode of MBW’s Talking Trends podcast, we asked probing questions about BTS’s recent switch to UMG, and about Warner Music Group‘s big recent value growth.

Here’s what happened in the past few days…

1) IS UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP GOING TO POST A $2BN EBITDA PROFIT THIS YEAR?

Universal Music Group has announced its first quarterly financials as a public company – and everything is very much still moving in the right direction.

Across all of its divisions (including recorded music, publishing and more) the world’s biggest music rightsholder posted revenues in the three months to end of September (Q3) of €2.153 billion.

That was up 17.4% YoY at constant currency, and up by 6.5% on the €2.022 billion revenues UMG posted in the prior quarter (Q2)….

2) READ SIR LUCIAN GRAINGE’S FIRST STATEMENT TO INVESTORS AS THE CEO OF A PUBLICLY-TRADED UNIVERSAL MUSIC GROUP

In addition to filing its first financial results this week, Universal Music Group conducted its first ever earnings call as a publicly-traded company, on which Executive Vice President of Digital Strategy Michael Nash and EVP, Chief Financial Officer Boyd Muir were grilled about UMG’s results.

On the call, UMG Chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge addressed investors himself, during opening remarks in which he hailed the “beginning of a new wave of growth and evolution” in the music industry.

Read Sir Lucian Grainge’s address in full, here…

3) SONY MUSIC’S QUARTERLY STREAMING REVENUES BURST ABOVE $1BN FOR THE FIRST TIME

Sony’s global recorded music business enjoyed a standout quarter in calendar Q3 – with streaming revenues surpassing the magic USD $1 billion mark during the three months to end of September.

That’s according to new fiscal results for Sony Music Group posted by its parent, Sony Group Corp, in Japan yesterday (October 28) and analyzed by MBW.

It was the first time in history, according to MBW’s calculations, that Sony’s recorded music revenues from streaming have broken the quarterly $1 billion milestone…

4) UNITEDMASTERS VALUED AT $550M, AFTER RAISING $50M IN NEW FUNDING ROUND

UnitedMasters has raised $50 million in new funding.

Led by Andreessen Horowitz, the new round values the independent artist distribution platform at $550 million, which, The Information reports, includes that new investment.

This week’s news marks yet another significant financial milestone for New York-headquartered UnitedMasters.

The company’s latest funding round comes just six months after it secured a $50 million Series B investment, led by Apple with additional funding from existing backers, Google parent Alphabet, and Andreessen Horowitz…

5) WHY DID BTS LEAVE SONY FOR UNIVERSAL? AND WHAT’S UP WITH WARNER’S $10BN VALUE GROWTH?

This week on our Talking Trends podcast, host Louise Porter and MBW founder Tim Ingham discuss the shock news that, following a long and successful partnership, Korean superstars BTS (via HYBE) have ended their relationship with Sony Music / The Orchard / Columbia.

Instead, BTS will release music through Universal Music Group and Interscope in the future.

Porter and Ingham discuss why BTS might have made this decision – or had the decision made for them – and what the motivations might be in the new deal for Universal and HYBE, each of whom are publicly-traded companies…

MBW’s Weekly Round-Up is supported by Centtrip, which helps over 500 of the world’s best-selling artists maximise their income and reduce their touring costs.Music Business Worldwide