Shares of the Walt Disney Co. rebounded after hours on Tuesday after the company reported profit and revenue for the fiscal second quarter that were above Wall Street expectations.
Disney reported per-share earnings of $1.95, up from $1.50 during the same quarter a year ago. Excluding certain items that the company said affect comparability, earnings were $1.84 per share. Analysts expected Disney to report earnings of $1.69 per share, according to estimates gathered by Yahoo Finance.
Revenue in the quarter hit $14.5 billion, up from $13.3 billion last year and above analysts forecasts of $14.1 billion.
“Driven by strong results in our parks and resorts and studio businesses, our Q2 performance reflects our continued ability to drive significant shareholder value,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said in a statement. “Our ability to create extraordinary content like Black Panther and Avengers: Infinity War and leverage it across all business units, the unique value proposition we’re creating for consumers with our DTC platforms, and our recent reorganization strengthen our confidence that we are very well positioned for future growth.”
All of Disney’s revenue segments experienced an increase during the quarter. The most significant boost came from the company’s studio business, which saw revenue increase to $2.45 billion in the quarter, up from $2.03 billion during the same period last year.
During the company’s quarterly conference call with analysts and investors, Iger further praised the impact “Black Panther” and Marvel Studios generally have had on the company’s overall business. The studio and media businesses help fuel the rest of the company, he said, referring to the content coming from those segments.
“The more popular our IP is, the more in demand it is at our parks,” Iger said during the conference call.
Revenue for the media segment rose to $6.14 billion from $5.95 billion during the same quarter a year ago, while revenue at the Parks business increased to $4.88 billion from 4.30 billion.
Disney shares fully recovered from the minor losses the stock suffered on Tuesday, after President Donald Trump announced the U.S. was withdrawing from the Iran deal.
Iger touted the company’s upcoming streaming service, saying that Disney is focused on developing a service based on quality, not quantity. Iger teased additional announcements and details in the coming months.
Iger sidestepped questions about the company’s potential acquisition of a majority of 21st Century Fox’s film and TV assets.
On Monday, reports that Comcast was interested in submitting a counter-offer for Fox that seemed to threaten Disney’s proposed $52 billion bid.
Iger said that Disney still strongly believes in the Fox assets as a necessary addition to Disney’s business moving forward as it looks to build out streaming services with hopes of peddling its content and IP directly to consumers around the globe.