Vivendi, parent company of Universal Music Group, released its earnings for fiscal 2007 today. (Download PDF of full press release here.)

UMG's revenues dipped 1.7% to €4.87 billion for the year and dropped 3.1% to €1.6 billion in Q4. Excluding revenue from acquisitions (BMG Music Publishing and Sanctuary) revenues were down 7.2% for the year 10.2% in Q4.

For the year, digital sales rose 51% to €676 million and represent 14% of total revenues. For Q4, digital sales rose 54% (at constant currency).

Nutshell: UMG increased its market share in a shrinking market and revenue was helped by acquisitions. The outlook for '08 is gloomy, but there a couple encouraging things that make the continued fall of the CD a slight bit less grim. One is the speed with which the company is now changing -- or at the very least trying to change -- adapt to current realities. The other is 2007's release schedule, which was pretty miserable. It would be hard for all labels to collectively put out fewer big name albums than they did last year...although it's not totally out of the question (especially if EMI vigorously prunes its label rosters).

[music jobs] Director of Content at Dada Entertainment; New York, NY.