Warner Music down $32m in Q3

WMG music giant has posted losses of $32m blamed on a weak performance in France and Japan and damaging exchange rates. 

The recently published report shows revenues dropping 4.9% – down to $654m. The results show an improvement to 2011’s Q3 results which was down $46m.

Warner claims exchange rates have damaged revenues of 1.2% on a constant currency basis.

There can be positive signs from the report, however. Growth in the US, Germany, Italy, Canada, Latin America and parts of Asia has improved, along with digital revenues growing 13% to $230m, representing 35.2% total revenues for the quarter.

 

WMG impressed with digital revenues.

Reactions from inside WMG have remained positive. WMG’s CEO, Stephen Cooper said, “There were several bright spots in our results for the quarter… In our Music Publishing business, we grew OIBDA, OIBDA margin and constant-currency revenue.  In our Recorded Music business, strong growth in digital revenue more than offset the decline in physical revenue on a constant-currency basis, showing the promise of the industry’s transformation.”

Recording music revenue was down 5.3% to $518m, whilst digital recorded revenues once again shows the industry that digital is the future with a 13% growth to $215m.

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