Mou$e Bu$ine$$...

As Walt Street markets closed today the Mouse revealed its quarterly earnings...

And the company's earnings were down. Partly because of the tragedy in Japan, but also because of some man made disasters as well. Here are a list of some of the highlights:

- The Walt Disney Company had a net income of $942 million for the quarter (off 1% from 2010, ago).

- Company revenue rose by 6% to $9.1 billion, from $8.6 billion in the comparable quarter (strange how it can be off by last year and still have more cash, eh?).

- The Walt Disney Studios made $77 million for the quarter which ended on April 2 (a 65% drop from the same quarter of 2010, which had blockbusters like "Alice in Wonderland"). The bad news was mainly from "Mars Needs Moms" which subtracted $70 million from the studios bottom line. The other was "Prom" which was a huge stinking pile of, well let's just say it was a High School Musical wanna-be. Mars was one of Dick Cook's projects, but Prom was Ross' first green lit film which was an example of the bad of the old regime and the bad of the new regime. Let's pray the rest of his selections don't go like this or 2013/14 will see him going the way of Cook.

- The bright spot as it has been for several quarters is in the broadcast/cable properties of the Mouse, particularly ESPN. Income increased 17% to $1.5 billion from an rise in advertising revenue at ESPN, additional subscribers/fees for Disney Channels Worldwide and ad buys for ABC and the Disney owned television stations.

- As stated before, the earthquake/tsunami in Tokyo resulted in lower earning for the Disney Parks division now run by Tom Staggs. A 3% drop in income meant that the division made $145 million. This profit includes all 11 parks, the 9 Disney owns and the 2 that are licensed to the Oriental Land Company.

A profitable, but mixed bag for investors as the loss didn't result in going into the red, but still provided less than desirable earnings for stockholders.

Of course Summer/Soundsational is just around the corner and good things lie ahead...

Profit Motive...

The Walt Disney Company released its financial quarterly numbers...

And it looks like Steve Jobs' touch on his other company may be rubbing off on the Mouse. Not that all the news was good, but a 40% profit jump is great news in this economy? Shareholders and Wall Street were very happy to hear the good news. Theme parks and Resorts were down slightly, with bookings in the hotels being one of the largest negatives. The films unit was the jewel, with the top three films of the year (all greenlit by former Suit, Dick Cook) made by Disney. The television unit, specifically ESPN also posted great numbers. All in all, a great showing for the entertainment giant in general, and Iger in particular.

It shows that Disney magic can sometimes even avoid a recession...

A Fifty Billion Dollar Fruit...

"If you annualize our quarterly revenue, it's surprising that Apple is now a $50+ billion company. The new products we are planning to release this year are very strong, starting this week with a major new product that we're really excited about." - Steve Jobs

Wow, I thought that Steve Job's "Reality Distortion Field" only applied to those attending his speeches...

It appears the whole company now. The current state of a very depressed economy has had absolutely no effect on the Little Fruit Company. It's as if the world outside doesn't have any sway on Cupertino. Would that all business were immune to the disasters of modern economics.

If you don't know what I'm blathering about then you didn't see Apple's quarterly statement being released yesterday. To say that it was very good would be a great understatement. Maybe akin to saying that "Avatar" has made a profit.

Here's the skinny:

* Net income for the quarter ended Dec. 31 surged 50% from a year earlier to a record $3.4 billion, or $3.67 per share.

* Apple's sales rose 32% to a record $15.7 billion, easily sweeping past analysts' forecasts of $12.1 billion. The second straight quarter in which Apple posted record revenue.

* A 100% year-over-year rise in iPhone sales and a 33% increase in Mac sales. Apple sold a record 8.7 million iPhones in the quarter. That's up 17.6% from the 7.4 million it sold in the previous quarter and twice what it sold during the same quarter a year ago. Part of the sales increase was due to the release of the device in China last quarter.

* Despite the economic problems, Apple sold 3.4 million Macs in the quarter.

* Although the company lowered prices for many of its products last quarter, it still managed to grow gross margin to 40.9%, up from 37.9% a year ago. Apple beat Wall Street's consensus forecast by over five percentage points.

* The company anticipates earnings of about $2.06 to $2.18 per share in the current quarter on revenue of about $11 billion to $11.4 billion.

And then there is that little event being held at ten in the morning tomorrow. A new device will be introduced and expectation is high that it will be a tablet (iSlate, iPad, iTablet, iDon't Know). Word is that the device is being positioned for entertainment purposes more than a business. Media (print and electronic) and games are said to be a primary focus of the device and Jobs is said to be extremely happy with the results. Steve is a very demanding CEO so if he's happy, I really am curious as to what this device will be/do. What will it be? A competitor of the current tablets or something going after a PSP?

We'll know by this time tomorrow...

Down On Disney...

With the current state of the economy the Mouse obviously, is struggling like everyone else...

Disney's latest quarterly results were released last week and a lot of people have been down on the stock (even though the results beat most analyst predictions), but Barrons seems to be saying: "Not so fast..."

Jobs Opening...

I know that Steve Jobs is one of several members on the Walt Disney Company's Board, that he's one of the most influential with Iger because of his relationship with Pixar and Lasseter, that him owning six percent of the company makes him the largest single owner of all, but...

Maybe he should be, I don't know, more. I mean, remember when the Mouse bought Pixar, everyone heard the rumors that he was going to mount a takeover like he did at Apple back in the late 90's. There were constant rumors going about that he was going to challenge Iger for the CEO slot. There were a few that he was going to take the position of Chairman of the Board and be the power behind the throne. It all turned out to not be so... except that he is "a" power behind the throne, just not the only one. When you're as successful as he is, with his ability to persuade, with the almost Disney-like fairy tale story of Apple's resurgence, you have to have some influence at the meetings they have. With his power over the music industry, his evangelizing of the iPod and changing the cultural typography of society with "must have" products like the iPhone are all magnetic powers that have people on the Board listening to his suggestions. But...

Shouldn't he be more? Like, maybe he SHOULD be Chairman? Or something else. I mean, have you seen the latest quarterly reports that came out today for his fruit company?

Wow.

Talk about a company that refuses to take part in the recession. Apple, Inc. alone has told the market and the world that: "Thanks, but no thanks" regarding this economic downturn. If only GM and Chrysler had handled their business like Apple then perhaps they wouldn't be talking about a merger right now.

For those of you with a giant question mark over your head saying: "What are you talking about, Honor?"

Well, just take a look at the financial results from earlier today:

- Apple's Q4 profit rose over 26 percent to $1.14 billion for the three-month period ended September 27th, 2008.

- Apple in America shipped 1,121,000 Macs and had $3.572B in revenues. That's are up 16 percent and 22 percent year-over-year, respectively.

- Apple in Europe shipped 611,000 Macs and had $1.723B in revenues. That's up 22 percent and 29 percent year-over-year.

- Apple in Japan shipped 78,000 Macs and had $320M in revenues. That's an increase of 8 and 25 percent year-over-year.

- Apple in the rest of Asia shipped 205,000 Mac shipments and had $562M in revenues. That's up by 32 percent and 27 percent compared to the same period a year ago.

- Apple's "Other Music Related Products and Services" segment earned the company $832M in revenue. A 38 percent increase year-over-year.

- Apple's "Peripherals and Other Hardware" brought in $428M in change... errr, I mean revenue. This was a 24 percent increase year-over-year.

- Apple's "Software, Service and Other Sales" accounted for $549M in revenue. This was a 28 percent increase over the same period in 2007 and a 10 percent over Q3 numbers.

- Apple sold more Macs than they've ever sold in a single quarter of its history.

- Macs actually accounted for less than half of Apple's total revenue with just 45.9 percent of total income.

- Apple sold 6,892,000 iPhones during Q4, earning $806M from these and related products; this is more than all previous quarters combined. They've already passed the 10 million mark that they planned for the entire year and have three more months to go. I'd call that purty successful, wouldn't you?

- Sales of the iPhone actually beat RIM's BlackBerry shipments last quarter; RIM shipped 6.1 million handsets compared to Apple's near 6.9 million. Apple, Inc. is now the third-largest mobile phone supplier in terms of revenue and it only became a phone maker a little more than a year ago.

- and Apple said that they sold more... do I really need to go on?

Actually, I could. There's quite a bit more news pertaining to iPods, Apple Stores and several other things but I think you get the point.

Perhaps we should just turn over the Mouse to Steve? I wonder what would happen if we did? I know that the Walt Disney Company is doing relatively well right now, the financials are pretty solid, but it makes you wonder what would happen if Steve Jobs had a tighter grasp on the reigns of power in Burbank.

With his attention to detail and his ability to make things that the world craves, could he make Disney's world be even more desirable?

Stay tuned...