Digital Sales Soar At EMI

EMI Group , the world's third-largest record company, said on Thursday it expected annual profit to rise by around 12 percent after digital music sales soared.

The company, home to artists such as Coldplay and The Rolling Stones, said it had also identified an additional 30 million pounds of annual cost savings.

"Overall, the group expects to report full year revenue growth of close to 4 percent, with digital revenues more than doubling to over 110 million pounds," it said in a statement.

"Group profit before tax, amortisation and exceptional items is expected to have increased by approximately 12 percent."The company said its EMI Music unit expected to show revenues up 2 percent for the year on a constant currency basis, with second half sales seen marginally ahead of the previous year's level.

It said digital music revenues continued to show rapid growth, increasing by more than 150 percent at constant currency and accounted for over 5.5 percent of the unit's sales for the year.

"This strong divisional performance reflects successful releases from a broad range of artists including international superstars Coldplay, Gorillaz, Robbie Williams and The Rolling Stones ... and breaking artists KT Tunstall, Dem Franchize Boyz and Corinne Bailey Rae," EMI said.

The company said that from the 30 million pounds of annual cost savings it had targeted, it expected that not less than 10 million pounds would be delivered in the financial year to the end of March 2007, with the full rate seen achieved by the close of the following year.

EMI Music Publishing was expected to show 2.5 revenue growth on a constant currency basis.

It said digital revenues from the unit, including ringtones and online services, also grew strongly.

© Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.

Source: