The world's best-selling album of 2005 - Coldplay's eight-million seller X&Y - and the emergence of solo artists KT Tunstall and Corinne Bailey Rae saw EMI outperform the global music market last year. It is likely to post profits of £159m for the year to end-March.
The music giant said ahead of annual results next month that a sluggish industry meant revenues grew just 4% in the year to more than £2bn but profits have risen 12% under chief executive Eric Nicoli's cost-cutting regime.
Revenues from the digital music market-doubled to £110m, accounting for more than 5% of EMI's sales last year, as computer downloads and iPod use increased.
Nicoli recently said the advent of the digital music age was 'the most important moment in the entire history of the music industry - the opportunity is unimaginably large'.
EMI, a much-touted merger partner for Warner Music, said it will cut another £30m of annualised costs this year through a shake-up of its Japanese operations.
Source: thisismoney.co.uk
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