Earnings: Napster Reports Wider Loss, But Beats Revenue Expectations

AP: Online music service Napster reported a wider loss for Q2, but surpassed Street expectations as the its revenues more than doubled from last year.
The quarterly loss was $19.9 million, compared to $2.6 million last year. Revenue rose to $21 million from last year's $7.9 million. During the quarter, Napster paid subscribers -- excluding university subscribers on summer break -- surged 13 percent sequentially and more than tripled from the same period last year. Those subscribers grew from to 402,000 from 356,000 during the period.
Looking ahead, Napster expects to report Q3 revenues in the range of $21 million to $23 million. Wall Street projects sales of $21.5 million during the period.
Gross margins for the company on content also increased to 31 percent, up from 20 percent in the year-ago quarter.
Release: Napster ended the first quarter with $126.6 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, plus $14.2 million in value of shares of Sonic Solutions stock, including the associated hedge, for a total of $140.8 million.