Buoyed by the box-office successes of Finding Dory and The Jungle Book, Disney took home profits of US$2.6 billion during its third quarter ended July 2, marking an increase of US$114 million over the prior-year period.
Overall revenue rose 9% to US$14.3 billion, with the company’s Studio Entertainment division seeing a 40% rise in revenue over last year to the tune of US$2.8 billion.
The Studio Entertainment group also experienced a whopping 62% hike in operating income during Q3, benefiting from having five significant release titles during the period—including Captain America: Civil War, The Jungle Book, Finding Dory and Alice Through the Looking Glass—compared to four in the prior-year quarter. While gains were partially offset by marketing costs for The BFG, the success of Q2’s Zootopia managed to bleed into the third quarter.
Released June 17, Finding Dory scored US$135 million in its domestic opening weekend, and the animated sequel currently ranks as the top-grossing film of 2016 in the US, with more than US$474 million in box-office sales to date. In fact, Disney is currently home to the four of the top-five highest-grossing box-office films to date in the US. (Captain America: Civil War, The Jungle Book and Zootopia are among the ranks.)
In looking at other segments, Media Networks and Parks and Resorts saw 2% and 6% rises in revenues, respectively.
Within Media Networks, quarterly Cable Networks revenue increased 1% to US$4.2 billion, and operating income increased 1% to US$2.1 billion, due to growth at ESPN, which was partially offset by lower Disney Channel and Freeform results.
Broadcasting revenue rose 5% to US$1.7 billion, while operating income decreased 6% to US$282 million, thanks largely to lower network advertising revenue, higher equity losses from Hulu and increased cost write-downs for network programming.
Consumer Products and Interactive Media experienced a 1% dip in revenues to US$1.1 billion. That division’s operating income also declined 7% to US$324 million. The numbers were driven down by decreases in merchandise licensing, as well as retail and Japan mobile businesses. These were partially offset by a boost within the company’s games business, which had lower product development and marketing costs following the discontinuation of Disney’s Infinity console game initiatives in May. Within this segment, the House of Mouse saw sales rise from merchandise based on Finding Dory/Finding Nemo and, unsurprisingly, Star Wars.