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The Southern African Music Rights Organisation (Samro) says the suspension of lockdown regulations has seen an uptick in royalties collected in the previous year.
For the last fiscal year, Samro collected R515 million in licence and royalty income, which was R38 million more than the previous year.
In a statement released on Tuesday, the organisation said it had distributed R253 million, as compared to R235.2 million in 2021.
Samro chairperson Nicholas Maweni said improved revenues were driven by fewer lockdowns and a more efficient royalty collection process.
Maweni stated:
Maweni added that Samro’s costs were also significantly lower this year, declining by 8.1% or R12.8 million.
"Its cost-to-income ratio decreased from 29.3% in 2021 to 25.9% in 2022, which is also significantly down from 40% four years ago. This is mainly due to tight cost control and more efficient processes."
Maweni said despite operating in a tough economic environment, with inflation at a 12-year high of 7.6%, Samro managed to overcome the spectre of escalating bad debts with improved collections in the 2022 financial year.
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"As Samro continues to build revenue towards its ambitious goal of attaining R1 billion by 2025, we will continue to look at extracting more revenue from digital platforms, government departments and city municipalities, schools and previously unlicensed sectors, such as the transport industry, while continuing to improve the broadcast, general licensing and live industries collections," added Maweni
Maweni said that Samro is looking forward to tirelessly collecting more royalties on behalf of its members.
He mentioned:
"Samro’s composers, authors, lyricists and publishers can rest assured that Samro is a proactive and innovative organisation that is always looking for new ways to protect them."
