Walt Disney Co.’s stock edged up 2% in extended trading Wednesday after the media giant announced earnings that beat estimates, a huge jump in streaming users and vowed to increase annual cost cuts to $7.5 billion from $5.5 billion.
“We are most focused on profitability by the end of fiscal 2024,” Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger told CNBC in an interview after the results were announced.
Disney
DIS,
reported fiscal fourth-quarter net income of $264 million, or 14 cents a share. After adjusting for restructuring costs and other effects, Disney reported earnings of 82 cents a share. Revenue rose 5% to $21.24 billion, from $20.15 billion a year ago.
Analysts surveyed by FactSet had on average expected adjusted earnings of 71 cents a share on revenue of $21.37 billion.
Disney reworked how it breaks out business segments. Its largest, entertainment, was $9.52 billion, up 2% from the same quarter a year ago.
Experiences came in at $8.2 billion, an increase of 11% from $7.3 billion last year.
Sports, which includes ESPN, was $3.9 billion.
Disney+ added nearly 7 million subscribers globally, leading to a lower quarterly loss of $387 million, from $1.5 billion a year ago. Iger credited the popularity of movies like “Elemental,” “Little Mermaid,” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,” as well as original series “Ahsoka” and the Korean original series “Moving.”
The company, which announced a price hike in August, is battling for streaming supremacy with media giants Apple Inc.
AAPL,
Netflix Inc.
NFLX,
Amazon.com Inc.
AMZN,
Warner Bros. Discovery Inc.
WBD,
D, Comcast Corp.
CMCSA,
A, and others.
As the company celebrates its 100th anniversary, it faces a labyrinth of problems. While Iger races to turn a profit with the streaming business, he must navigate a protracted actors strike, a dip in attendance at Disney World Resort in Orlando, Fla., legal antagonisms with Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and uncertainty around a CEO succession plan.
Shares of Disney, at their lowest in nearly a decade, are down 8% since Iger returned as CEO a year ago, and have slipped 2.7% this year. The S&P 500
SPX
has climbed 14%.
This post was originally published on Market Watch
