Earnings: Warner Music Digital Rev Up 26 Percent; Reps 6 Percent Of Total

Revenues were higher -- up 2 percent to $742 million -- but Warner Music Group, still paying for its IPO and other items, turned in a net loss of $179 million for the company's FY3Q05. (Adjusted loss for non-recurring and other items was $35 million.) Digital continues to be the best story WMG has to tell, as Chairman & CEO Edgar Bronfman, Jr., stressed in the earnings release for WMG's FY3Q05: "In the most advanced digital market place - the U.S. - we are encouraged to see digital gains outpacing the physical business." (Not sure I agree that the U.S. is the most advanced but that's another story.)
Overall, digital revenue hit $44 million for the quarter -- six percent of total revenue; that represents increases of 26 percent of the previous quarter and 76 percent over FY1Q05. Digital music led Recorded Music to a two-percent increase - just as double-digit online revenue increases are helping newspaper publishers eke out single-digit increases this quarter. Recorded music operating income was $6 million for FY3Q05 -- excluding IPO and other non-recurring costs -- it would have been $32 million, up 33 percent from $24 million in the same quarter last year.
Digital revenue brought in $6 million for Music Publishing -- pushing it to 4 percent of that unit's revenue from 3 percent in FY2Q05.
Earnings release | Webcast replay