The parent company that distributes stuff from 4AD, Rough Trade and XL Recordings has seen a drop in cash from 2013
Beggars Group, the umbrella company that looks after releases from some of the biggest players in the label game, has reported a 3.8 million quid profit from last year. This is down on 2013’s £4m profit from £52.9m revenues.
The company as a whole put out 44 releases during 2014, compared with 40 releases in 2013, but has still seen a slight drop in profits.
“In 2014 the global music market has seen a huge growth in streaming at the expense of physical sales, and to some extent, downloads,” the company said in a statement.
“Beggars Group Limited too has experienced a similar shift to streaming. We remain committed to supporting physical formats, and vinyl sales in particular have exceeded our expectations.”
As an idea of the releases the indie label pumped out last year, they put out our album of 2014, Dean Blunt’s Black Metal (on Rough Trade), FKA Twigs’ LP1 (on Young Turks), and Perfume Genius’ Too Bright ( on Matador).
Strong, but strong enough to stave off the next generation of music streamers this year? We shall see.
(via Music Week)