On the 2014 full year, Disney reported $4.26 in earnings per share and $48.8 billion in revenue versus consensus estimates of $4.31 in earnings per share and $48.76 billion in revenue.
Net income for the fourth quarter was $1.5 billion compared to $1.39 billion in the same period from the previous year. The net income for the 2014 fiscal year was $7.5 billion versus $6.13 billion in previous year.
Disney’s segments reported revenues for the fourth quarter and the full year:
- Media Networks reported $5.2 billion and $21.1 billion
- Parks and Resorts $3.96 billion and $15.1 billion
- Studio Entertainment $1.78 billion and $7.28 billion
- Consumer Products $1.07 billion and $ 3.99 billion
- Interactive $362 million and $1.3 billion
The National Basketball Association (NBA) announced in early October that it will not only continue its partnerships with Turner Broadcasting System of Time Warner Inc. (NYSE: TWX) and Disney, but will also ramp up its content availability. The agreement states that Disney and Turner will broadcast NBA games through ABC, TNT and ESPN starting in the 2016-17 season and spanning nine years out to the 2024-25 basketball season. It also includes details on digital content distribution.
Apart from ESPN, Disney also boasts the movie and rights to Frozen, the highest grossing animated film of all time, which has a near-cult following. This Halloween, Disney sold over 3 million Frozen costumes. It might not be far off to expect that the huge success of Frozen would be reflected in Disney’s earnings for this quarter, and even more the full year.
Robert A. Iger, Chairman and CEO, said:
Our results for Fiscal 2014 were the highest in the Company’s history, marking our fourth consecutive year of record performance. We’re obviously very pleased with this achievement and believe it reflects the extraordinary quality of our content and our unique ability to leverage success across the Company to create significant value, as well as our focus on embracing and adapting to emerging consumer trends and technology.
FBR Capital Markets had an Outperform rating for Disney and boosted its price target to $105 from $97. And Guggenheim downgraded Disney to a Neutral rating from Buy and lowered the price target to $87 from $96.
Shares of Disney closed Thursday up 1% at $92.00. Following the release of the earnings report, the initial response in the post market was negative and shares were down 1% at $90.82.
The company’s stock has a consensus analyst price target of $94.00 and a 52-week trading range of $66.72 to $92.00. It has a market cap of nearly $158 billion.
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