RS Music forms a joint venture with Universal Music Group

Editorial staff

RS Music forms a joint venture with Universal Music Group to springboard its music to global arena

RS Music reinforces its leadership as Thailland’s music icon by joining hands with Universal Music Group (UMG), the world’s leading music company, to co-manage music rights and royalties, a move to help RS Music springboard to global arena.

UMG will invest 1.6 billion baht to co-manage music rights and royalties of more than 13,000 songs.

The move marked a comeback of RS’s music business glory. In recent years, RS Music of RS Group underwent business transformation to fully scale up its music business, coupling with multi-faceted proactive strategies to support the changing lifestyles of listeners along with the growing music streaming platforms.

As part of its efforts, the company planned to release new songs by its famous artists, develop new artists, and collaborate with artists from other labels, while actively seeking new opportunities to strengthen its business through domestic and foreign partnerships.

Mrs Pornpan Techarungchaikul chief executive officer of RS Music

Also recently, Mrs Pornpan Techarungchaikul was appointed as chief executive officer of RS Music as a part of significant moves to advance RS Music on a global stage and prepare itself for business listing in the future.

Mr Surachai Chetchotisak, chief executive officer of RS Plc, said that today’s music industry is vastly different from the past. It is proven that technology and online distribution through music streaming platforms can enable skyrocketing growth in the music business, where listeners can enjoy our music from anywhere in the world.

In addition, he said what the company did would help enhance the accuracy of the company’s revenue projections in the long run. All of these have led RS Music to undergo a major transformation with a grand vision in multi-faceted revenue generating opportunities especially from the digital distribution channels that grow alongside the changing consumer behaviors.

According to International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), it found in 2022 that the global music streaming business generated 67% of total revenue in music industry and experienced a CAGR of over 5%. In Thailand, listeners enjoy their music through streaming platforms for 1.8 hours per day.

Mr Surachai Chetchotisak, chief executive officer of RS Plc

This data shown gives RS Music a business opportunity. The company has resumed its music business under a new business model through strong partnership, both domestically and internationally, to expand opportunities and maximize business potential of RS Music.

“Our collaboration with the world’s number one music label, Universal Music Group (UMG) is established as a joint venture, where UMG invested 1.6 billion baht to co-manage music rights of more than 13,000 songs of RS. This partnership will enable listeners worldwide to access our music content through various online channels, such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, as well as other streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, JOOX, and others,” he said.

Meanwhile, he added RS Music will also manage the music rights domestically for offline usage at restaurants, pubs, bars, karaoke bars, music marketing activities, concerts, and shows,” Mr Surachai added.

Mr Surachai expects RS’s Music revenue to reach 720 mill baht in 2023. After appointing Mrs Pormpan as its CEO, he believed her talent and strong experience in media and entertainment business would move its operation even faster and achieve its long-term goals, especially a listing on the Stock Exchange of Thailand and generate 1.2 billion baht in revenue within three years from new music production and royalty management which will account for 40% of the company’s total revenue.