the Universal Music Group that occurred in February — which loosely divided the music giant’s labels under two umbrellas, Republic Corps and the Interscope Capitol Labels Group — has created a new hegemony that effectively splits its industry-leadingsit atop label empires that, in a given week, can rival the Warner Music Group as a whole in terms of market share.
Sticking in sixth place is Capitol Music Group — whose market share still contains indie distributor Virgin, as well as Quality Control/Motown, Capitol Christian, Astralwerks and Blue Note — which posted a 4.71% current share, down from 5.56% in the first three months of 2023. Dropping to seventh is Columbia, which includes some labels from indie distributor RED in its market share, at 3.71%, down from 5.85% a year ago.
The numbers are more static when looking at overall market share, which includes back catalog, though the trends are still there: Universal and the indies both were up over Q1 2023, while Sony and WMG dipped. By label ownership, the independent sector remains larger than any individual major, accounting for 36.09% in overall market share, albeit down from the 37.38% it had in Q1 2023.