The Walt Disney Company (DIS) exploded past all expectations as it reported its first-quarter earnings which grew to 29 cents a share, far above the 11 cents analysts projected. Part of the surge was connected to its sale of shares in US Weekly magazine and the E! Entertainment channel.
The company had strong gains though, even it you were to leave out the gains from the sales of shares in the two companies. They still would have outperformed by 11 cents a share without the sales. A major contributor to their strong quarter was the strength of their DVD sales which surged with offerings like "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest."
Other strong contributors for the company were the ABC network and cable channels.
Even with the struggling new Hong Kong theme park, the overall revenue for Disney's parks grew by 4 percent to reach $2.5 billion in revenue while operating income increased to $405 million, an 8 percent improvement. Most of that came from Walt Disney World.
For the quarter which ended on December 30, net income doubled to $1.701 billion, equal to 79 cents a share. This was in comparison to last year's same quarterly income of $734 million, or 37 cents a share.
Total revenue for the quarter grew by 10 percent to 49.725 billion, up from $8.854 billion last year. Even when you take away the one-off events, earnings still grew by a healthy 43 percent, equalling 50 cents a share.
Even with the great quarter, there were some weaknesses though, with the movie division losing with disappointing like "Santa Clause 3."
The consumer products unit also struggled with a drop of 6 percent for the quarter to $692 million with a decrease of 13 percent in operating income to $235 million.
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