The Walt Disney Co. reported financial results on Wednesday for the company’s last quarter as a singular studio entity. The second-quarter earnings report, which comes on the heels of Disney’s acquisition of Fox’s film and TV entertainment assets, were above Wall Street expectations.
Disney finalized its $71.3 billion deal for Fox’s assets on March 19, just ahead of the end of the company’s second quarter.
“We’re very pleased with our Q2 results and thrilled with the record-breaking success of ‘Avengers: Endgame,’ which is now the second-highest grossing film of all time and will stream exclusively on Disney+ starting December 11th,” Disney CEO and Chairman Bob Iger said in a statement. “The positive response to our direct-to-consumer strategy has been gratifying, and the integration of the businesses we acquired from 21st Century Fox only increases our confidence in our ability to leverage decades of iconic storytelling and the powerful creative engines across the entire company to deliver an extraordinary value proposition to consumers.”
Disney reported earnings per share of $1.61 for the second quarter, which was down 13% compared with last year’s $1.84 earnings per share. But earnings were slightly above expectations for analysts tracking the company’s stock, who anticipated per-share earnings of $1.59, according to data collected by Yahoo Finance.
Revenue for the quarter hit $14.92, up from the $14.55 billion in revenue that the media and entertainment company reported during the same quarter a year ago and above the $14.39 billion in revenue that analysts had forecasted for the quarter per Yahoo Finance.
Shares of Disney were up roughly 2% in after-hours trading on Wednesday.
The company said that revenue from its parks, experiences and products division contributed the most to overall revenue at the company in the quarter as it rose 5% year-over-year to $6.17 billion. Revenue at Disney’s media networks rose slightly in the quarter to $5.53 billion, compared with $5.51 billion during the same quarter a year ago.
Disney’s studio division saw revenue decline 15% to $2.1 billion. The drop, Disney said, was due to tough comparisons a year ago when “Black Panther” dominated the box office and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” continued its impressive box office performance. During the second quarter Disney released “Captain Marvel,” which grossed $1.12 billion at the box office worldwide, as well as “Dumbo,” which hit theaters just two days before the end of the quarter.