Sony Music UK annual pre-tax profits grow 128% to £15.2

Sony Music UK revenues dipped 2.4% to £191m in the 12 months to March 31 2012, but international demand for artists such as One direction and Paloma Faith grew pre-tax profits 128% to £15.2m.

Meanwhile, Simco saw turnover nearly double from to £54.7m from £28.1m YoY, pre-tax profits climbed 38pc to £32.6m.

According to The Telegraph, other artists to help grow the labels profits with new releases in the 2011/2012 financial year included The Vaccines and Neil Diamond.

Chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment UK Nick Gatfield said the overseas success was partly down to the rise of social media, he explained: “Three or four years ago, the only way to break an artist in America was to spend a huge amount of time there and get radios to really embrace them.

“The barriers are down now. One of the huge game-changers is the way we can exploit social media [to] bypass the traditional gate-keepers. The consumers, in One Direction’s case, absolutely voted with their keyboards and helped them gain a following before [the album] launch.”

Despite the strong performance, the company’s highest paid director’s total remuneration nearly halved to £952,508, down from £1.8m the previous year, including pension contributions which fell from £120,000 to £54,443.

Source: Music Week