Rentrak fiscal Q1 earnings fall on higher costs
DVD distribution unit sales almost flat
By Danny King -- Video Business, 8/6/2008
AUG. 6 | Rentrak's fiscal first-quarter net income fell 17% as its core rental-store customers faced increased competition.
Net income for the quarter ended June 30 declined to $1.04 million, or 9¢ a share, from $1.25 million, or 11¢, a year earlier, as revenue rose 4.6% to $25.4 million.
Rentrak’s advanced media and information unit, which supplies business data to subscribers, had a 29% surge in revenue from a year earlier to $3.04 million, the company said yesterday.
Sales of its primary pay-per-transaction unit rose less than 2% from a year earlier while cost of sales lifted 5.3%, the company said in a regulatory filing.
The traditional video stores Rentrak serves have been hurt by a combination of flattening DVD sales, expanding DVD-kiosk revenue and rising demand for digitally delivered titles through services such as Apple’s iTunes. U.S. DVD spending through June 30 was little changed at about $10.1 billion despite industrywide Blu-ray Disc spending jumping fourfold to about $200 million, according to data compiled by Rentrak and Video Business.
