Believe posted strong double-digit revenue growth in the first half of 2024, helped by its acquisition of Sentric Music Group in 2023, but was dampened slightly by weak ad-supported streaming revenue. Revenue rose 14.1% to 474.1 million euros ($512.7 million) and adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) improved 29.3% to 31.3 million euros ($33.8 million dollars), the company announced on Thursday (August 1st).
“Despite persistent market headwinds in some of our key regions, Believe continued to generate solid profitable growth during the half,” CEO Denis Ladegaillerie he said in a statement. “We continued our strategic roadmap to build the best artist development company in the music industry while completing a restructuring of our capital structure, giving us greater financial flexibility and partners who can accelerate our profitable growth story.”
However, the Paris-based company lowered its full-year revenue expectations. Because Believe will lose year-over-year growth benefits from streaming price increases and is “cautious” about ad-supported streaming, the company lowered its guidance for organic revenue growth to 12% from 18%. That said, it raised its guidance for full-year adjusted EBITDA margin to more than 6.5% from a previous figure of 6.5%.
Thursday's earnings announcement was Believe's first since a consortium including Ladegaillerie acquired nearly all of the company's shares through an auction that ended June 21. The consortium, which includes funds managed by TCV and EQT X, now owns 96.02% of the share capital and 94.87% of the voting rights. Believe continues to have a small number of minority shareholders and its shares are still traded on the Euronext Paris stock exchange, but due to low volatility, the company will only publish interim and full-year results and will no longer publish quarterly results.
First-half revenue rose 17.9 percent to 78.4 million euros ($84.8 million) in France, Believe's home and biggest market, where it claimed 40 percent of the top local singles and 30 % of top local albums during the period. Revenue fell 1.2 percent to 53.5 million euros ($57.9 million) in Germany, its second-biggest market. In Europe, excluding France and Germany, revenue rose 24.7% to 121.9 million euros ($131.8 million).
Americas grew 21.8% to 73.9 million euros ($79.9 million), helped in the second quarter by the reallocation of most of Sentric Music Group's revenue to the U.S. Believe acquired Sentric, a music publishing company based in Liverpool, 2023 by Utopia Music. Asia/Oceania/Africa rose just 3.7% to 116.3 million euros ($125.8 million). while revenue was “slightly up” in India, it fell in some Southeast Asian markets that rely heavily on ad-supported streaming.
Believe's Premium Solutions division, which includes publishing, labelling, and artist services, grew revenue by 13.5% to 440.9 million euros ($476.8 million) in the first half of the year. Most of this improvement came from organic growth, with Sentric accounting for 2.3 percentage points of growth. Revenue in the Automated Solutions division, which includes digital distributor TuneCore, rose 23.4 percent to 33.2 million euros ($35.9 million).
