Sony Music Sales Down Slightly in Q4
Sony Corp. reported that its music operations sales were 178.5 billion yen ($1.539 billion), down from the third quarter of 2015 when sales were 181.8 billion yen ($1.57 billion), a decline of 1.8 percent. It attributed that decrease due to appreciation of the yen against the dollar and strong sales in the third quarter of 2015, when Adele‘s 25 album was breaking sales records.
But Sony also reported that on a constant currency basis (using an average exchange rate of 116 yen to the dollar for both years), sales increased 4 percent. (Since Sony is based in Japan and Sony Music Entertainment is based in the U.S., Billboard notes that Sony’s music results from the U.S. perspective — using an average currency exchange rate of 120.4 yen to the dollar for 2015 and 106.6 yen to the dollar for 2016 — posted an increase of 10.9 percent with music revenue at $1.68 billion in the third quarter, versus $1.51 billion reported a year ago.)
Meanwhile, Sony reported that its music divisions enjoyed a slight increase in operating income of 27.98 billion yen ($241 million), a 2.4 percent lift over 27.32 billion yen ($235.3 million).
For the nine-month period, Sony’s music divisions reported revenue of 470.6 billion yen ($4.06 billion), a 4.2 percent increase from the 451.3 billion yen ($3.89 billion) reported in the same period of 2015, on a constant currency basis.
(From the U.S. perspective, that translates into revenue of $4.414 billion using an average of 106.6 yen to the dollar, versus the first nine months of 2015 when revenue was of $3.751 billion, based on an average exchange of 120.4 yen to…