Goldman Sachs Values UMG At $53 Billion

• Goldman Sachs’ annual “Music in the Air” study created some serious chatter this week when it valued Universal Music Group at a massive $53 billion ahead of its IPO, which is expected this fall. That’s up from $36 billion as stated in last year’s report. According to Variety (and noted in Music Business Worldwide), Goldman also projects that the pandemic-flattened live entertainment industry will climb to $12.7 billion this year, compared to a dismal $4.8 billion in 2020.

The report, authored by Goldman analyst Lisa Yang also projects that the gold rush around purchasing song catalogs and intellectual property will continue, while the music-publishing business, which was also hard-hit by plummeting performance royalties due to the pandemic, will see a modest rise in revenues, to $6.2 billion, up from last year’s $6 billion.

And there’s more — the report also states, “We anticipate a faster shift to music streaming and greater monetization of music content from new formats (e.g. short-form video, connected fitness, gaming, etc.), a trend that has been further accelerated by the pandemic,” while also predicting that “Amazon, YouTube and Tencent Music [will be] the major share gainers” in the streaming battles to come. It also projects that the three major music companies — UMG, Sony and Warner, “will hold their dominant positions but face some market share dilution amid the rise of entry-level and mid-tier artists.”

And finally, the report also projects that revenues of the worldwide recorded-music business will be up nearly $2 billion, from $21.6 billion in 2020 to $23.5 billion this year, with streaming up $3 billion in gross revenue to $21.1 billion, while also predicting that the number of global streaming subscribers will climb from 443 million in 2020 to 527 million this year — and up to 697 million in 2023, and 1.2 billion+ by 2030.