Highlighting digital is becoming a habit with the music companies; it comes in especially handy when overall results are disappointing as was the case at Warner Music group today. WMG’s profit dropped 74 percent to $18 million, or $0.12 per share, compared with $69 million or, $0.49 per share, in the same quarter last year. Revenues dropped 11 percent to $928 million from $1.044 billion in FY1Q06. As MarketWatch notes, analysts expected earnings per share of $0.24 on $945 million in revenue.
Just imagine the profit/revenue picture sans digital, which contributed $100 million—11 percent of the revenues . That was up 45 percent from $69 million in the same quarter last year but down 4 percent from $104 million from the previous quarter.
—Recorded music digital revenue of $93 million grew 45 percent over the prior-year quarter and represented 12 percent of total Recorded Music revenue.
—Domestic digital revenue was $61 million, or 17 percent of total domestic recorded music.
—In music publishing, digital revenue was $7 million, 5.3 percent of the total. Declines were offset by a 40 percent increase in digital.
Earnings release | Webcast