BARCELONA (Agefi-Dow Jones)–Universal Music Group (UMG), the record label of The Weeknd, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift among others, stock jumped on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange on Tuesday in response to Apple’s announcement an increase in the price of the subscription to its music streaming service Apple Music. This decision should generate, according to Citi analysts, additional revenues for UMG.
At 10:10 a.m., the UMG share gained 8%, to 20.41 euros. In its wake, the titles of Vivendi, which owns 10% of the record company, and Bolloré, which controls 18% of UMG and is the parent company of Vivendi, won 3.4% and 2.2% respectively. .
The American technology group announced that the cost of subscription to Apple Music in the United States would increase by 1 dollar per month, to 10.99 dollars. The price of the annual subscription will increase from 99 to 109 dollars. Apple, which has also raised subscription prices to its Apple TV+ video streaming service, justified these decisions by higher music licensing costs.
“As Apple itself says, one of the reasons for the price increases was the need to cover licensing costs and so it seems likely that this will have a positive effect on music royalties overall,” the analysts write. from Citi in a note.
The value of royalties from music rights has exploded in recent months. Catalogs have sold for up to 30 times their average annual royalties.
-Mauro Orru, Dow Jones Newswires
(French version Valérie Venck) ed: LBO
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Dow Jones Newswires
October 25, 2022 04:15 ET (08:15 GMT)