LOS ANGELES (Feb. 3) - The Walt Disney Co. said its net profit fell 32 percent in its fiscal first quarter and missed analysts' targets Tuesday. Disney's movie studio suffered from a weaker lineup of home video selections, while the company's TV networks and theme parks also declined.
Shares in Burbank, Calif.-based Disney, fell $1.13, or 5.4 percent, to $19.49 in after-hours trading.
Net income in the quarter that ended Dec. 27 fell to $845 million, or 45 cents per share. In the same period a year earlier Disney earned $1.25 billion, or 63 cents per share.
Revenue fell 8 percent to $9.60 billion.
After excluding a one-time gain from selling investments in two pay TV services in Latin America, Disney's earnings per share hit 41 cents.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had expected, on average, earnings of 52 cents per share on revenue of $10.1 billion.
"We faced a challenging first quarter with many of our businesses impacted to various degrees by the economic downturn," Disney Chief Executive Robert Iger said in a statement.
Disney's studio revenue dropped 26 percent to $1.95 billion. The company said stronger DVD releases a year ago, including "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" and "Ratatouille," outperformed the holiday releases this year, including "WALL-E" and "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian."
Revenue at the cable networks such as Disney Channel and ESPN rose 2 percent to $2.45 billion, but broadcasting revenue at ABC declined 14 percent to $1.45 billion.
Parks and resorts revenue fell 4 percent to $2.67 billion as attendance at the company's U.S. theme parks and hotel occupancy at its domestic resorts declined.
Consumer products revenue grew 18 percent to $773 million, reflecting that the company took back control of its chain of Disney Stores in North America.
Interactive media revenue, its video game and online unit, was broken out for the first time and showed a 13 percent gain to $313 million.
