Pixar earnings beat expectations despite drop
The tale of a worried clown fish
searching for his lost son sent the quarterly
net income of Pixar Animation Studios surfing
past analyst expectations, despite a drop from
last quarter's results.
The Emeryville, Calif.-based studio,
which produced this year's "Finding Nemo"
with The Walt Disney Co., reported net income
of $13.1 million, or 23 cents per share, compared
to $46.9 million, or 87 cents per share in the
same quarter last year.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson First
Call had expected net income of 13 cents per share.
Revenue dropped 70 percent to
$30.2 million from $102.5 million in the same
period last year.
The quarter suffered from comparison
with DVD and home video sales of last year's Pixar
hit, "Monsters Inc." Pixar will recognize
revenue from the home video release of "Finding
Nemo" in its next fiscal quarter.
The "Finding Nemo" video
and DVD was released Wednesday and has sold a
record 8 million DVD and VHS copies in its first
day, breaking the previous high of 7 million set
last year by "Spider-Man."
The better than expected results,
plus anticipated box office receipts from "Finding
Nemo" in Japan and Europe, caused Pixar to
increase its estimates for full-year earnings
to $1.76 per share, up from its previous estimate
of $1.60 per share.
Pixar chief executive Steve Jobs
said the studio is in exclusive negotiations with
Disney over a new partnership and will not talk
to other studios unless the Disney talks fail.
Pixar wants a new deal that will
let it own its own films and pay Disney a small
fee to distribute its pictures. The current deal
has Disney sharing production costs and reaping
more than 50 percent of box office profits.
Jobs said he wants a deal in place
by the middle of next year. Pixar has two more
films to deliver under its current Disney deal,
which expires in 2006.
For the first nine months of the
year, Pixar reported net income of $40.9 million,
or 72 cents per share, compared to $73 million,
or $1.39 per share in the same period last year.
Revenue for the first nine months was $97.7 million,
compared to $162.4 million in 2002.
Shares in Pixar rose 20 cents
to close at $70.16 on the Nasdaq Stock Market
before the results were released Thursday. They
gained $1.00 in extended trading.
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