1、Do you hear it?Its everywhere.2 0 0 5 A N N U A L R E P O R T4Pictured on the cover:Yi Ping Ho,Senior Manager,Strategic Planning and Business Development Listening to Hung Up by MadonnaDo you hear it?dear shareholderThis year Warner Music Group has emerged as a leader in the digital music realm,and
2、became the only publicly-traded independent music company in the United States.Warner Music Group today is a high-performing,innovative and streamlined global company,with an industry-leading man-agement team and some of the worlds greatest musical artists.And this is just the beginning.Our ongoing
3、transformation as a company is geared to seizing the opportunities in the rapidly changing music industry for the mutual benefit of our shareholders,artists and customers.As we bring you our first annual report,we are proud to share with you some of this years accomplishments that demon-strate how W
4、arner Music Group is evolving.LEADING THE RENAISSANCE OF THE MUSIC INDUSTRYThe music industry is undergoing a renaissance driven by converging forces in technology and entertainment.The shift from“physical”sales(of CDs and DVDs)to“digital”sales(of downloads and ringtones)offers great potential to po
5、wer ever greater consumption of music.We are highly focused on fully exploiting this growth poten-tial,and we are already beginning to see some of the results.For the twelve months ended September 30,2005,our growth in key genres and our digital business contributed significantly enough to our domes
6、tic recorded music business that we outperformed the industry by 4.0 percentage points,based on year-over-year U.S.SoundScan total album unit sales performance.We believe that these changes are fundamental and provide a significant source of future growth in the industry.Why?Because this trend is bu