Digital Sales, Coldplay, Boost EMI Profits

Music giant EMI has said profits are up almost 13 per cent to £159.3 after revenues from its digital content more than doubled during the year.

EMI, whose artists include Robbie Williams, Coldplay and Gorillaz, said its music division outperformed the rest of the industry. Digital sales hit £112.1 million from £46.9 million a year ago, helped by US downloads of Coldplay's latest album X&Y.

These offset a 5.3 per cent decline in physical sales for the industry as a whole. In the UK and Ireland, physical sales fell 4.9 per cent while digital sales increased by 170 per cent to give a total industry decline of 3 per cent.EMI said the digital environment for its music is now "extremely dynamic" with new entrants, services and devices, while it said it continued to make progress in combating both physical and digital piracy.

Meanwhile, EMI said new and developing artists such as Radja, Corinne Bailey Rae and Raphael had contributed strongly to its performance.

The full-year results came as investors awaited the next move from the company in its long-running attempt to secure a takeover of Warner Music Group, which is home to music from Madonna and James Blunt.

While Warner rejected an approach from EMI earlier this month, the UK company has said it still believed a tie-up would be attractive to both sets of shareholders.

More on this here [thanks coldpatrix]