Assuming European officials do, as expected, give the go ahead to a Sony BMG merger, the latter of the two merging majors may want to tweak the deal slightly before signing on the dotted line after a period of considerable success in terms of record sales helped them come out top in both single and album sales in the second quarter of 2004 in the UK.
According to figures released this week, BMG held on to their position of having biggest share of the UK singles market in the last quarter - with Usher's 'Yeah' helping the company take a 15.6% share of overall sales.
Meanwhile in the album sector BMG stole the highest market share crown of its merger partner Sony, with Usher's 'Confessions', the Ultimate Dirty Dancing compilation and Maroon 5's 'Songs About Jane' helping BMG achieve a 11.1% share.
While at a group level the combined sales of Island, Polydor and Mercury mean Universal Music remains biggest player overall, when sister division Zomba/Jive is included with BMG's figures they are not that far behind despite being a much smaller company - helped in particular on the singles side by the best selling release of the quarter, 'F**k It (I Don't Want You Back)', which came out on Jive.