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Technology Stocks : Napster, Inc. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: D. K. G. who wrote (21)	2/9/2005 7:36:04 PM
From: zax	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 44

Napster revenue grows fourfold in Q3 Shares jump after-hours on raised Q4 forecast By Dan Gallagher, MarketWatch Last Update: 6:59 PM ET Feb. 9, 2005 SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Napster Inc.'s revenue increased fourfold during its third fiscal quarter as the company's online music service continued to grow. The seller of online music services swung to a net profit for the quarter ended Dec. 31, though the profit stemmed from its Roxio consumer software division, which the company sold to Sonic Solutions just two weeks before the end of the period. Continuing operations posted a loss that was deeper than the initial consensus forecast from Thomson First Call. A spokeswoman for Napster said some analysts had failed to account for the exclusion of the Roxio business, and had therefore set higher estimates that skewed the consensus figure. The Los Angeles-based company's shares (NAPS: news, chart, profile) jumped nearly 10 percent in after-hours trading, as Napster set a fourth-quarter revenue target above analysts' current expectations. Napster's share price climbed 76 cents in Wednesday's after-hours trading after closing the regular session down 79 cents, or 9.1 percent, at $7.86. For the third quarter, Napster reported earnings of $12.8 million, or 83 cents per share, compared to a net loss of $25.6 million or 28 cents a share for the same period last year. The earnings included operations from the Roxio software division, which was sold to Sonic Solutions (SNIC: news, chart, profile) on Dec. 17. The company said its net loss from continuing operations was $16.4 million, or 47 cents a share. Revenue for the period was $12.1 million, compared with revenue of $3.6 million for last year's third quarter. In its earnings statement, Napster said subscriber growth for the quarter hit 50 percent, in line with a preannouncement issued on Jan. 13. For the fourth quarter, the company said it expects revenue of approximately $14 million. Analysts were anticipating revenue of $12.7 million for the period. Napster also raised its full-year revenue target to $43 million from a previous range of $35 million to $40 million. Last week, the company announced a new music downloading service that will compete directly against the popular iTunes service offered by Apple Computer (AAPL: news, chart, profile) . The Napster-To-Go service will charge subscribers a monthly fee, rather than a per-song download fee charged by Apple and competitors such as RealNetworks (RNWK: news, chart, profile) and Musicmatch, owned by Yahoo (YHOO: news, chart, profile) . See full story. Dan Gallagher is a reporter for MarketWatch in San Francisco.