Loading…
World's largest music company, owning recorded-music labels and music publishing rights across all major genres.
World's largest music company, owning recorded-music labels and music publishing rights across all major genres.
Collects royalties each time its recordings and songs are streamed, with subscription streaming now its largest source of income, and pays artists and songwriters a share, keeping the rest. Its catalog also licenses to games, film and ads, so it does not rely on new releases alone. Vivendi spun it off in 2021.
In one line: A global, pure-play Warner Music/Sony Music peer.
Moat: wide (IP / patents, scale, installed base). Owns the largest catalog of recorded music and publishing rights, a scale advantage in licensing talks.
Headquarters: Hilversum, Netherlands · Founded: 1934 · Employees: 10,595
Size Universal Music (UMG.AS) is a Netherlands Industrials company (Miscellaneous Commercial Services) with a market value of $35.3B, the 7th largest of 61 Netherlands companies the cockpit tracks. Shares closed at €17.09 on 6 Nov 2026.
Performance Over six months the shares fell 14.7%, against +12.8% for the median peer and +0.4% for the Netherlands market (cap-weighted) — 5th lowest of 18 in its peer set.
Growth Revenue grew 5.2% over the last twelve months (peer median +4.0%); the operating margin is 16.2% (peer median 16.3%).
Valuation It trades at 16.9× forward earnings against a peer median of 22.9× (4th cheapest of 19).
Price implies For today's price to make sense, revenue must grow about 7% a year for seven years (Req g). Recent delivered growth is +11%, so the hurdle is -4 pp: the price already allows for a slowdown.
Capital Return on invested capital runs 10.0 points above its cost of capital (7.6% WACC).
Next results Next results expected around 4 Mar 2027 (exchange calendar; dates can move).
| TTM | FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | €12.8B | €12.5B | €11.8B | €11.1B | €10.3B |
| Revenue growth | — | +6% | +7% | +7% | — |
| Gross profit | €4.86B | €4.87B | €4.68B | €4.52B | €4.21B |
| EBITDA | €2.56B | €2.59B | €2.35B | €1.83B | €2.02B |
| Net income | €323M | €1.53B | €2.09B | €1.26B | €782M |
| Free cash flow | €1.49B | €1.61B | €1.60B | €1.77B | €1.25B |
| Capital expenditure | €461M | €540M | €449M | €299M | €452M |
| Total debt | n/a | €3.41B | €3.19B | €2.51B | €2.67B |
The default views of Competitor Analysis ▸ Charts, drawn from the same data. Open them in the cockpit to change the axes, pin companies and read every value.
| Company | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Universal Music UMG.AS | $35.3B | -15% | +5% | 16% | 16.9× | 7.1% |
| Sony 6758.T | $156B | +33% | +1% | 13% | 18.7× | 3.4% |
| Warner Music WMG | $16.4B | -6% | +13% | 19% | 19.0× | 9.3% |
| Reservoir Media RSVR | $673M | 0% | +11% | 22% | 58.3× | 14.5% |
Peer set: Industry: the same industry and sector in any market, nearest in size. This is the same default set the interactive Competitor Analysis opens with.
| Measure | UMG.AS | Peer median | Rank in peer set |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-month return | +16.4% | +10.9% | 7th highest of 19 |
| 6-month return | -14.7% | +12.8% | 5th lowest of 18 |
| Distance from 52-week high | -26.3% | -8.8% | 6th lowest of 19 |
| Revenue growth (TTM) | +5.2% | +4.0% | 7th highest of 19 |
| Operating margin | 16.2% | 16.3% | 10th highest of 19 |
| Forward P/E | 16.9× | 22.9× | 4th cheapest of 19 |
| Growth the price implies (Req g, 7 yrs) | 7.1% | 8.2% | 8th least demanding of 18 |
| Growth delivered (Del g) | +11.0% | +7.0% | 4th highest of 18 |
| Hurdle (Req g minus delivered) | -3.9 pp | -0.5 pp | 8th least demanding of 18 |
| ROIC minus cost of capital | +10.0 pp | +8.6 pp | 8th highest of 18 |
| EV / EBITDA | 14.2× | 13.0× | 8th most expensive of 18 |
| Net debt / EBITDA | 2.0× | 1.7× | 7th most indebted of 18 |
| Company | Market | Market cap | 6M return | Revenue growth | Op. margin | Forward P/E | Req g | Delivered g |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Universal Music UMG.AS | Netherlands | $35.3B | -15% | +5% | 16% | 16.9× | 7.1% | +11.0% |
| Experian EXPN.L | United Kingdom | $36.1B | +16% | +7% | 25% | 20.5× | 14.6% | +8.9% |
| Adyen ADYEN.AS | Netherlands | $32.0B | 0% | +17% | 42% | 23.7× | 18.9% | -6.0% |
| Vylor VYLR | United States | $46.8B | n/a | +3% | 15% | 25.6× | 26.2% | +2.9% |
| Sgs SGSN.SW | Switzerland | $24.8B | +21% | +5% | 15% | 24.5× | 3.1% | +4.4% |
| Secom 9735.T | Japan | $18.8B | +16% | +4% | 13% | 22.7× | -0.3% | +3.9% |
| Rollins ROL | United States | $18.1B | -29% | +8% | 19% | 31.4× | 11.2% | +11.7% |
| Relx REL.L | United Kingdom | $70.4B | +23% | +2% | 32% | 21.3× | 1.8% | +6.2% |
| Eurofins Scientific ERF.PA | France | $17.5B | +49% | +3% | 12% | 23.0× | 13.3% | +6.1% |
| Computershare CPU.AX | Australia | $17.2B | +44% | 0% | 30% | 19.1× | -2.6% | +9.2% |
| UL Solutions ULS | United States | $15.9B | -22% | +6% | 19% | 31.2× | 9.1% | +5.8% |
| Bureau Veritas BVI.PA | France | $14.9B | +13% | +2% | 15% | 20.2× | 7.9% | +7.0% |
| Cintas CTAS | United States | $88.3B | +34% | +10% | 24% | 38.9× | 18.2% | +9.6% |
| Intertek ITRK.L | United Kingdom | $12.3B | +12% | +4% | 18% | 22.3× | 14.8% | +4.6% |
| CETC Lantian Technology 688818.SS | China | $12.1B | -33% | +5% | 9% | 214.2× | n/a | n/a |
| Rentokil Initial RTO.L | United Kingdom | $11.9B | -26% | 0% | 14% | 16.9× | 8.2% | +13.4% |
| Baycurrent 6532.T | Japan | $11.2B | +132% | +32% | 33% | 35.6× | 6.4% | +28.2% |
| Booz Allen Hamilton BAH | United States | $10.1B | +11% | -6% | 9% | 13.3× | -7.0% | +7.4% |
| Securitas SECU-B.ST | Sweden | $9.22B | +4% | -5% | 7% | 12.3× | -4.9% | +7.5% |