Numbers don’t lie, finance geeks will tell you. If that’s the case, then maybe things aren’t as bad for the music majors as media reports, trade bodies and executives will have us believe.

This came to mind after perusing the earnings reports from the two largest music companies: Universal Music Group (a unit of French telecoms/media giant Vivendi) and Sony BMG Music Entertainment (a joint venture of Sony Corp  and German media group Bertelsmann AG).

Universal posted a 3 percent fall in revenue in the fourth quarter of 2007, while Sony BMG said sales growth was flat (0 percent) after hit albums from Alicia Keys, Celine Dion and Carrie Underwood.

These aren’t bad performances when you consider both companies account for over half of music album sales — a market that is meant to have shrunk by around 15 percent in the United States through 2007.

But, as music blog Coolfer notes, the figures may not tell the full story.

Growth at Universal, whose best sellers included Andrea Bocelli and Mary J. Blige, benefited more from acquisitions including BMG Music Publishing and Sanctuary. Excluding the acquisitions, Universal’s revenue fell 5 percent.

As for New York-headquartered Sony BMG, it said Alicia Keys et al were important but the company also benefited from the favorable impact of exchange rates on sales outside the United States. Universal also claimed a similar impact.

For music companies, it seems the weak dollar is a bit of a hit.