Earnings season started with a bang in the music world, with two of the largest publicly traded music companies, Spotify and Universal Music Group (UMG), reporting their Q1 performances in the final week of April.
It didn’t all go smoothly. Both Spotify and UMG saw their stocks tumble following their first-quarter earnings results, which missed investors’ expectations. Spotify’s stock fell 13% in the five days after the company reported that operating income would likely fall over the next few quarters as it invests in AI, tech and marketing. UMG’s stock fell 9% in the trading day following its report that its $3.3 billion in revenue was flat compared to a banner first quarter last year.
Still, music companies’ earnings and share price performances continue to buck macroeconomic trends. South Korea’s HYBE had a record-setting quarter on the return of K-pop super-group BTS, which released its blockbuster ARIRANG album and kicked off a world tour this year, marking a long-awaited comeback after a hiatus due to the members’ completion of their mandatory military service. Meanwhile, SiriusXM stemmed the loss of subscribers with family plan subscriptions, price hikes and increased advertising revenue from Pandora.
Of course, those are just the music companies that have reported so far. Warner Music Group, Sony Music Group, Live Nation and more will report in the first full week of May.
For now, here’s a list, in alphabetical order, of the music companies that have released earnings results (as of May 1) for the quarter ending March 31, 2026. We will update the list as more companies report.
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HYBE
South Korea’s HYBE said on Wednesday (April 29) it racked up 698.3 billion KRW ($470.2 million), marking its highest-ever first-quarter revenue thanks to the comeback of BTS and the group’s fifth studio album, ARIRANG, and world tour. Revenue from artist-driven activities, including recorded music, concerts and ads, increased 25% to 403.7 billion KRW ($271.9 million), and recorded revenue nearly doubled year-over-year to 271.5 billion KRW ($182.3 million). Revenue from indirect artist activities (including official merchandise, licensing, content and fan club memberships) rose 66% year over year due to an increase in sales of BTS tour merchandise.
BTS’ ARIRANG, released on March 20, debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and remained there for three consecutive weeks, driving much of HYBE’s quarterly earnings. The album’s first single, “SWIM,” also entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 1, marking the group’s seventh No. 1 on the chart. ARIRANG opened with 641,000 equivalent album units earned, with 532,000 in pure album sales (purchases of physical and digital albums). With the release, BTS earned the biggest sales week for an album by a group in more than a decade.
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SiriusXM
On Thursday (April 30), SiriusXM Holdings reported double-digit profit growth for the first quarter, driven by subscription price hikes, increased advertising revenue from Pandora and companion plans boosting customer loyalty.
Net income rose 20% to $245 million, and overall revenue edged 1% higher to $2.1 billion in the quarter ending March 31 compared to the same period a year ago. The company’s adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) rose by nearly 6% to $666 million for a margin of 31.9%, and the drop-off rate among self-pay subscribers was at an all-time low despite the company raising prices for the second year in a row in February.
SiriusXM lost around 111,000 self-paying subscribers compared to 303,000 this quarter last year, which the company attributed to the success of its companion, or family, plans.
SiriusXM’s stock has been on a headline-fueled run-up, climbing more than 15% in April to nearly $27 a share as investors speculated it may be in talks to acquire terrestrial radio company iHeartRadio and could benefit from a regulatory change related to spectrum. Executives declined to directly address both matters on a call discussing earnings.
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Spotify
Spotify’s stock price fell more than 12% on April 28 following guidance from executives that the company expects lower operating income in the second quarter as it invests in technology, AI and marketing. Still, the streaming giant’s largest-ever single-day share price decline followed first-quarter earnings that beat company guidance on nearly all metrics. Monthly active users (MAUs) rose by 10 million in the quarter to a total of 761 million, driven by a 14% increase in ad-supported MAUs and a 9% increase in premium subscribers. Revenue topped 4.5 billion euros ($5.3 billion) on 10% growth in subscriber revenue, and operating income of 715 million euros ($821 million) beat guidance by 55 million euros ($63.2 million) due to lower-than-expected social charges, giving the company an operating margin of 15.8%.
Investors reacted negatively to a piece of the company’s forward-looking guidance that called for 630 million euros ($723.4 million) of operating income in the second quarter, with 10 million euros ($11.5 million) in expected social charges and elevated operating expenses for the next two quarters due to Spotify’s technology, AI and marketing investments. While that figure is down from the first quarter, Spotify executives said they expect second-quarter revenue of 4.8 billion euros from an additional 17 million monthly active users, for a total of 778 million MAUs.
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Universal Music Group
Universal Music Group (UMG) reported on Tuesday (April 29) that first-quarter revenue was flat at 2.9 billion euros ($3.33 billion), as the success of BTS‘s first studio album in five years couldn’t compare to the first quarter of 2025, when UMG released albums from Kendrick Lamar, Sabrina Carpenter, Lady Gaga, The Weeknd and Mrs. GREEN APPLE.
In UMG’s preferred constant currency metric, which normalizes foreign currency fluctuations that hurt its dollar-denominated earnings this quarter, the company saw overall revenue increase by 8.1%.
UMG chairman and CEO Lucian Grainge said in an earnings call that the company’s board had approved a doubling of its share buy-back program to 1 billion euros and the sale of half of UMG’s equity stake in Spotify, with a portion of the proceeds going to UMG artists as a non-recoupable check. Taylor Swift may have had something to do with that.
Grainge declined to comment on Pershing Square’s recent merger offer for UMG. Analysts noted that in the April 7 offer, Pershing suggested UMG sell its Spotify stake.
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