Universal Thanks Gotye For $1.2 Billion First Quarter

The Universal Music Group's parent company Vivendi have posted their first quarter results for 2012, which have UMG as posting €961 million ($A1.2 billion) in revenue.

It is a 9.1 percent increase on revenue for the first quarter of 2011, which the company credits to "very strong" sales of recorded music, particularly in the United States.

The official media release for the results credits albums from the likes of Madonna, Nicki Minaj and Van Halan, as well as the "breakthrough success" of Lana Del Rey and Australian worldbeater Gotye.

Digital music sales represented 39.8 percent of the revenues, and the company's earnings before the deduction of interest, tax and amortisation expense was €68 million ($A88 million) - an increase of 47.8 percent from the same time last year.

"Of course Q1 as you are probably aware is traditionally weak quarter of music sales, therefore we should not make too much out of those figures," said Vivendi CFO Philippe Capron in a conference call to analysts.

"They are not necessarily very significant, but still we've been able to observe a continuous momentum of the U.S. market which is driven by very healthy digital growth and we've been able to observe a strong performance of UMG, thanks to better market as we said, but also successful new releases and of course the benefits of the cutting drive. So that overall we post an impressive increase of 44% of the EBITA at constant currency.

"Once again those are small figures, because it's Q1, but still it's very encouraging."

The media release also addressed the fact that Vivendi and UMG were in the acquisition process of EMI Music's recording music activities , but "This transaction remains subject to the approvals of the relevant regulatory authorities."