BARCELONA - Private Media Group Inc. has announced its third quarter earnings for the three months ending Sept. 30.
According to the report, wireless sales for the company increased 19 percent. Internet sales were 1.4 million euro, which represented an increase of 12 percent. Broadcasting sales increased three percent.
Total New Media sales reached 4.5 million euro for the company, representing 60 percent of total net sales, an increase of eight percent in sales, compared to the same period last year.
“With respect to mobile content, we believe this market is still in its infancy,” said Private Media Group's CFO, Johan Gillborg. “As of September 2007, Private content was available to over 783 million handsets in 34 countries via 81 operators, of which 21 operators went live during 2007. The markets of Asia and the Americas are currently underexploited and therefore represent a significant growth potential to the Company. Furthermore, we recently entered into an exclusive global partnership with Mobile Streams to distribute our premium adult content through their platform for off-portal mobile services.”
The company's DVD and magazine sales decreased by 18 percent. The company reported a decrease in net sales of four percent, compared to the same period last year.
“As we are moving further into a world of global digital content delivery, DVD pricing and volume is being affected considerably and as a result the industry in general is experiencing a severe downturn in DVD sales,” said Gillborg. “In view of the aforementioned, during the first quarter of 2007 we started a reorganization of our distribution of DVDs and Magazines. Through this reorganization, we expect to maximize existing sales and over time reduce the revenue impact of this on our overall business.
“During the twelve-month period ending June 30, 2007, the European IPTV market experienced a tremendous growth of 231 percent to 5.0 million IPTV subscribers and based on this number we have currently reached a 74 percent coverage of this market,” continued Gillborg. “While European broadband users are signing up for IPTV services in the hundreds of thousands each month, making Europe the biggest and fastest growing IPTV region in the world, we have successfully implemented part of our new media strategy and contracted for supplying content for TVOD services with twenty three major platform operators in eleven territories in the region.
“With respect to these new IPTV platforms, it is important to note that our content has only been launched recently on relatively few of them and subsequently we have not seen any impact on our bottom line from this high-margin business yet,” said Gillborg. “However, during Q4/07 and Q1/08 we are building up shelf-space on all platforms and by the end of the first quarter 2008 we will have full exposure of our content on these fast growing IPTV platforms.
“In order to increase growth and profitability in our other types of broadcasting, we have restructured our trademark and content licensing business with respect to the operation and distribution of Private branded TV channels carrying our content in Europe and Latin America. The restructuring included finding new partners in these markets and subsequently we entered into agreements with Playboy TV Latin America and Playboy TV International. During the first nine months of 2007, both partners have expanded their reach for the Private branded TV channels.”
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