{"id":220628,"date":"2026-03-06T11:12:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T16:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/06\/universal-music-earnings-business-remains-strong-and-artificial-intelligence-fears-are-overstated\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T11:15:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T16:15:09","slug":"universal-music-earnings-business-remains-strong-and-artificial-intelligence-fears-are-overstated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/06\/universal-music-earnings-business-remains-strong-and-artificial-intelligence-fears-are-overstated\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal Music Earnings: Business Remains Strong, and Artificial Intelligence Fears Are Overstated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/global.morningstar.com\/en-gb\/stocks\/universal-music-earnings-business-remains-strong-artificial-intelligence-fears-are-overstated\">Universal Music Earnings: Business Remains Strong, and Artificial Intelligence Fears Are Overstated<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/global.morningstar.com\/en-gb\/stocks\/universal-music-earnings-business-remains-strong-artificial-intelligence-fears-are-overstated\">https:\/\/global.morningstar.com\/en-gb\/stocks\/universal-music-earnings-business-remains-strong-artificial-intelligence-fears-are-overstated<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-03-06 11:12:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"global.morningstar.com\">global.morningstar.com<\/a><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"key-morningstar-metrics-for-universal-music-group\" class=\"mdc-heading__mdc mdc-heading--level-4__mdc mdc-heading--bold__mdc mdc-story-body__header__mdc mdc-story-body__block__mdc\">Key Morningstar Metrics for Universal Music Group<\/h2>\n<ul class=\"mdc-story-list__mdc mdc-story-list--unordered__mdc mdc-story-body__block__mdc\">\n<li>: EUR 31<\/li>\n<li>: \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><span class=\"mdc-story-dictionary-term__mdc\">Morningstar Economic Moat Rating<\/span><\/p>\n<p> : Wide<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><span class=\"mdc-story-dictionary-term__mdc\">Morningstar Uncertainty Rating<\/span><\/p>\n<p> : Medium<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 id=\"what-we-thought-of-universal-music-groups-earnings\" class=\"mdc-heading__mdc mdc-heading--level-4__mdc mdc-heading--bold__mdc mdc-story-body__header__mdc mdc-story-body__block__mdc\">What We Thought of Universal Music Group\u2019s Earnings<\/h2>\n<p class=\"mdc-story-body__paragraph__mdc mdc-story-body__paragraph--large__mdc mdc-story-body__block__mdc\">Excluding the effect of currencies, which have weighed heavily on results over the past year, Universal Music\u2019s sales growth accelerated in 2025, including during the fourth quarter. Investment needs have been high but are paying off, and we expect further sales acceleration in 2026.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mdc-story-body__paragraph__mdc mdc-story-body__paragraph--large__mdc mdc-story-body__block__mdc\">Why it matters: Universal\u2019s stock has been punished, which we attribute mostly to fears that artificial intelligence-generated listening will cannibalize traditional, human-created music from the artists Universal represents. In our view, Universal\u2019s power in its industry substantially limits any long-term detriment.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"mdc-story-list__mdc mdc-story-list--unordered__mdc mdc-story-body__block__mdc\">\n<li>Universal has struck deals with multiple AI-music firms so that it can monetize and monitor AI music creation and consumption that is enabled by music it controls. As long as consumers treat AI-generated music as a complement rather than a replacement for traditional music, Universal is insulated.<\/li>\n<li>Recent deals struck with subscription streaming platforms protect against AI songs on those platforms diluting Universal\u2019s revenue pool, and licensing deals struck with AI music firms to allow use of Universal\u2019s music keep creations from leaving those platforms.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"mdc-story-body__paragraph__mdc mdc-story-body__paragraph--large__mdc mdc-story-body__block__mdc\">The bottom line: We maintain our EUR 31 fair value estimate, driven primarily by our view that growth from streaming platforms, which make up over 60% of sales, remains high.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"mdc-story-list__mdc mdc-story-list--unordered__mdc mdc-story-body__block__mdc\">\n<li>Excluding the impact of currencies and nonrecurring items, subscription revenue from Universal\u2019s recordings on streaming platforms\u2014Universal\u2019s largest source of revenue\u2014rose 9.6% during the fourth quarter and nearly 9% in 2025, driven mostly by subscriber growth.<\/li>\n<li>With recent Spotify price increases and new deals taking effect with many platforms in 2026, we expect a further acceleration in 2026. Universal\u2019s control of music from&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/global.morningstar.com\/en-gb\/stocks\/universal-music-earnings-business-remains-strong-artificial-intelligence-fears-are-overstated\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Universal Music Earnings: Business Remains Strong, and Artificial Intelligence Fears Are Overstated https:\/\/global.morningstar.com\/en-gb\/stocks\/universal-music-earnings-business-remains-strong-artificial-intelligence-fears-are-overstated Publish Date:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":220629,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/morningstar-morningstar-prod.web.arc-cdn.net\/resizer\/bLJQZ7fV7t0Zwq2JekHoHwm4H9w=\/2400x1350\/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com\/morningstar\/LLC7ID3TDNDQXLTNKVSHYSUK5Y.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-220628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220628"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220628"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":220630,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220628\/revisions\/220630"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220629"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}