SAN FRANCISCO, CA / ACCESSWIRE / March 8, 2022 / Sanwire Corporation, a diversified company with a focus on technologies for the entertainment industry ("Sanwire") (OTC PINK:SNWR), and its wholly owned subsidiary, Intercept Music Inc. ("Intercept"), a SaaS entertainment technology company, collectively the "Company," has announced 2021 financial and corporate performance highlights. As the Company prepares for a full public release on March 28, it reports strong growth, significant investment, and critically, successful delivery of services for its core market of music labels and artists.
Intercept Music Shows Scalable, Sustainable Growth and Investment
The Company's financial statements for the year ended Dec 31, 2021 show strong operational performance and financial position for the core Intercept Music business, which provides record label services to the independent music market. In the context of the continued strong performance of the music industry overall (see below), Intercept Music is ideally positioned for continued and sustainable growth with service offerings that are unparalleled among independent music service companies.
As the proof phase of Intercept Music concludes this month, the Company has seen significant increases across many key performance indicators, and has created an infrastructure to accommodate future growth.
Highlights of the 2021 financial report include:
- Increased gross sales more than 70% over previous year;
- Grew per-artist revenue by 22% over 2020;
- Converted more than 75% of short-term convertible debt into long debt and equity;
- Raised more than $1.1 million in new equity financing.
Additionally, the Company has expanded and refined its service offerings, with positive results including:
- Increased customer base, to a current total of 40 independent labels and 300 independent artists;
- Added branded, turnkey online merchandising stores to enhance artist revenue;
- Expanded artist marketing services to include playlisting, public relations, advertising, reviews, physical recordings, and more.
Operationally, the Company has created a roadmap for future growth and enhanced profitability, as well. Highlights of this side of the business include:
- Streamlined customer service support, resulting in a 50% decrease in customer service requests;
- Focused business on labels. As a result of testing initiatives, the Company discovered that compared to individual artists, label customers offer multiple artists, enhanced operational efficiency, and greater resources, among other benefits;
- Hired a full-time marketing director, as well as additional customer service and marketing personnel, overall tripling staff count;
- Signed with top-end, outsourced service providers to deliver world-class results in software development, public relations, and investor relations, without additional personnel overhead costs.
Near-term developments
In the immediate term, the Company has achieved industry-wide recognition, with several artists earning 2021 GRAMMY nominations, and two artists with top-100 tracks in their respective genres.
Music Industry Continues Trends to Independent Artists and Alternative Revenue Sources
Beyond Intercept Music's standalone performance, the overall music industry within which the Company operates has demonstrated continued high performance and long-term viability.
In 2021, the industry continued its growth in recorded and streaming music, with a focus on independent artists. With recorded music revenue in the first 6 months of 2021 pacing 27% over the year prior, and projected second-half revenue being even higher, the music industry could have its greatest annual revenue since the all-time high set in 1999. On the streaming music side, streaming revenue accounts for 58% of total industry revenue, and in just the past two years the number of songs streamed per month has grown 300%.
The health of the music industry is further indicated by developments such as the Universal Music initial public offering, which raised $53 billion, or 37% more than offer price. Independent artists also remain a centerpiece of the industry's strength, with more than $5 billion changing hands to acquire music rights in 2021. Music artists continue to rely on merchandise and ticket sales, among other sources, to build their revenue, and gained an important new tool with non-fungible tokens (NFTs). In 2021, global NFT sales totaled $25 billion.
Intercept Music offers a comprehensive, powerful suite of tools focused on independent labels and their artists. The Intercept Music platform delivers the full stack of major-label services in an agile package focused on generating revenue and 100% artist-maintained ownership. Labels and artists using Intercept Music enjoy full marketing muscle including social media, ad campaigns, and playlisting; turnkey online merchandising; and free worldwide music distribution to more than 200 countries and 80 major streaming services.
ABOUT INTERCEPT MUSIC, INC., SUBSIDIARY OF SANWIRE CORPORATION
Intercept Music champions creative iconoclasts. The entertainment technology company harnesses the power of premium distribution, sizzling social media, meaningful marketing, monumental merchandising, and customizable promotional services to empower independent labels and their artists to build audiences and drive revenue. The Software as a Service (SaaS) company focuses exclusively on the independent music market, the fastest-growing sector of the music industry. Intercept Music is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sanwire Corporation (OTC PINK:SNWR; interceptmusic.com/sanwire), a company focused on advanced technologies for the entertainment industry. Learn more at Intercept Music.
For further inquiries, contact ir@sanwirecorporation.com, or press@interceptmusic.com
Safe Harbor Statement: This release contains forward-looking statements. All statements regarding our expected future financial positions, results of operations, cash flows, financing plans, business strategy, products and services, competitive positions, growth opportunities, plans and objectives of management for future operations, listing on the OTC Markets, including words such as "anticipate," "if," "believe," "plan," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "could," "should," "will," and other similar expressions are forward-looking statements and involve risks, uncertainties, and contingencies, many of which are beyond our control, which may cause actual results, performance, or achievements to differ materially from anticipated results, performance, or achievements. We are under no obligation to (and expressly disclaim any such obligation to) update or alter our forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
SOURCE: Sanwire Corporation
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