Epidemic Sound publishes its 2023 Annual Report and Sustainability Report

• Continued net sales growth of 25 percent, seeing increased profitability with an adjusted EBITDA margin of four percent
• Increasing reach of Epidemic Sound’s music has solidified its market-leading position, simultaneously supercharging its unparalleled distribution power for artists and attracting global superstars like Jordin Sparks
• The company expects to continue improving its financial position in 2024 through a growing creator economy and being well positioned within artificial intelligence

Stockholm, Sweden – Epidemic Sound, the soundtracking platform for content creation, today released its Annual Report and Sustainability Report. Another strong year saw the company deliver total net sales of SEK 1,478 million with a growth of 25 percent. The year also demonstrated improved operational efficiency, increasing profitability with an operating result (adjusted EBITDA) of SEK 59 million, which corresponds to an operating margin of four percent.

During 2023, the company soundtracked more content than ever before: videos including its music now rack up 2.5 billion daily views on YouTube and TikTok alone, with its tracks frequently featuring in content by global brands such as Red Bull Media House, LA Galaxy, SIXT, Warner Bros Discovery, and Salesforce.

“Epidemic Sound’s music reaches billions of viewers and listeners every day - we know what the internet sounds like, and our growing reach is solidifying our position as the market-leading soundtracking platform for content creation,” commented Oscar Höglund, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder at Epidemic Sound. “It means we can track trends as they emerge - such as the continued resurgence of classical music - and use these insights to meet our customers’ needs. And as we grow, we’re simultaneously supercharging our powerful distribution engine for artists, helping them to find their audience and build their fanbase.”

In September 2023, the song BACK2BACK by Epidemic Sound Phonk artists STRLGHT and ROONIN was used to soundtrack a video by the US-based, comedic gaming content creator @TheRussianBadger. With over six million subscribers to the channel, the video began amassing tens of millions of views and millions of likes. Overnight, plays of the track on music streaming platforms grew by over 400 percent, and by the following week daily Shazams had more than tripled. Since then, STRLGHT and ROONIN have experienced a nearly 200 percent collective increase in followers across online platforms like Soundcloud, Spotify, Deezer, and Instagram, while the track has amassed over 10 million streams, subsequently being added to Spotify’s Phonk playlist, which has seven million saves, and Apple Music’s official 2024 Shazam Predictions playlist.

The continued growth of Epidemic Sound’s distribution engine for artists throughout 2023 has seen the company attract global superstars to its roster, such as Jordin Sparks, as well as celebrated classical musicians such as Eric Jacobsen and Mira Ma.

“We expect our growth to be further bolstered both by the expectation that the creator economy will almost double in size by 2027, and the fact that we are well-positioned to utilize the expanding capabilities of artificial intelligence,” added Oscar Höglund. “While our AI experts are laser-focused on addressing the technical needs of content creators, we also own the world's largest restriction-free catalog of top-quality, stem-based tracks, and have unparalleled data insight on how that music performs online. Epidemic Sound is, if not the best-positioned, then one of the best-positioned to explore building a system that holistically supports artists and content creators, harnessing AI’s capabilities while keeping artistic authenticity, integrity, and fair remuneration at the core.” 

In 2023, the company launched the AI-powered music discovery tool, Soundmatch, alongside major updates to its search functionality, to make the soundtracking process as simple and quick as possible for content creators.

“This year, our heightened focus on operational efficiency, combined with increasing demand within a growing market, has meant we’ve been able to increase our profitability. We have a strong growth trajectory within a cost-efficient operating model, and we’re excited for what 2024 has in store for us, our customers, artists, partners and shareholders,” commented Sara Börsvik, Chief Financial Officer at Epidemic Sound.