The latest financial results from technology firm RealNetworks include figures for its Napster subsidiary: $106.3m of revenues for 2019.

Napster’s cost of revenues for the year were $85.9m, with operating expenses of $25.8m leading to it recording an operating loss of $5.4m for the year. Napster’s revenues were $143.8m in 2018, which would indicate a 26.1% year-on-year decline in 2019. However, there’s a caveat: “Napster revenues are included in our consolidated results from the January 18, 2019 acquisition date forward,” explained a note earlier in RealNetworks’ SEC filing – so the 2019 figure may be missing just over half a month in revenue. We can directly compare Napster’s Q4 revenues from 2018 and 2019 though.

This RealNetworks filing shows that Napster’s revenues in the first nine months of 2018 were $111.3m, while this filing shows full-year 2018 revenues of $143.8m – which means Q4 2018 revenues of $32.5m. The latest filing reveals that in Q4 2019, Napster’s revenues were $26.1m – so a year-on-year decline of around 19.7%.

In separate news, Napster has partnered with car maker BMW to power the latter’s BMW Music service in Europe. It’ll offer a catalogue of music and audiobooks to drivers in Germany, France, the UK, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Spain.

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Stuart Dredge

Music Ally's Head of Insight

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