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![]() UMG's operational headquarters in Santa Monica, California | |
Formerly |
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Company type | Private |
Industry | |
Founded | September 1934 |
Headquarters | , United States (operational) |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | Lucian Grainge (Chairman & CEO) Boyd Muir (CFO) |
Products | Music and entertainment |
Revenue | ![]() |
Owners | |
Number of employees | 8,319 (2018)[2] |
Divisions | List of Universal Music Group labels |
Website | universalmusic |
Universal Music Group is a company that runs four record labels in the music industry. It is the largest business group and family of record labels in the world. It started in 1934 as "Decca Records USA" and had some other names, before it became "Universal Music Group" in 1996. The company is based in Santa Monica, California.[3][4]
UMG controls 25.5% of the market share. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of French company Vivendi; Universal Studios, the movie studio, was sold in part to NBC, which itself is part of GE. UMG owns the largest music publishing business in the world, Universal Music Publishing Group, following the acquisition of BMG Music Publishing in May 2007. Vivendi's headquarters are in Paris, France. In the United States, UMG is in Santa Monica, California, and New York City, along with Universal Music Group Nashville; in the UK the group has a number of offices in London and Romford.