The Walt Disney Company Press Release

The Walt Disney Company Reports Higher First Quarter Earnings

BURBANK, Calif., Feb 06, 2006 -- The Walt Disney Company (DIS):

-- EPS for the first quarter totaled $0.37 versus $0.33 in the prior-year quarter

-- The Company reported operating income growth at Parks and Resorts, Media Networks and Consumer Products, offset by lower results at Studio Entertainment

-- During the first quarter, the Company repurchased 49 million shares for approximately $1.2 billion

The Walt Disney Company today reported earnings for the first quarter ended December 31, 2005. Diluted earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter increased 12% to $0.37, compared to $0.33 in the prior-year quarter.

"I am encouraged by the solid momentum in our earnings and the financial and creative strengths that underpin these results," said Robert Iger, President and CEO of The Walt Disney Company. "We continue to focus on our strategy of creating the finest content, embracing leading edge technologies, and strengthening our global presence and in doing so, we are confident in our ability to deliver long-term success across each of our businesses. Our recently announced plan to acquire Pixar advances our efforts against each aspect of that strategy. In addition, today's announcement of our proposed combination of the ABC Radio business with Citadel Broadcasting underscores our commitment to maximizing the value of our assets for our shareholders, while focusing our capital and management resources toward our core businesses."

Full Report can be found here...

http://corporate.disney.go.com/investors/quarterly_earnings/2006_q1.pdf

From the conference call...

Disneyland Resort attendance up 18 % for the quarter.

Walt Disney World attendance up 5 %, with an improvement of 15 % from international visitors.

- Karl

More numbers...

Disneyland Resort per capita spending up 18% compared to October thru December 2004.

Hotel bookings up 6% to 96% capacity.

Foreign visitors up "high single digits" at Disneyland, Tom Staggs mentioned that the majority of folks visiting Disneyland are locals.

For WDW, per capita spending was up 3% compared to October thru December 2005.

Hotel capacity was at 83% for October thru December 2005 for WDW.

And as for the attendance figures, the increase is based on the October thru December 2004 figures. (1st Quarter 2005 vs 1st Quarter 2006).

Also of note is the fact that Wall Street was predicting earnings of $0.30 per share, and Disney blew it away at $0.37 per share. I'm sure that the market will give it a nice response in the morning.

One Major point I thought about at Dinner tonight, Christmas 2004 had a LOT of bad weather in Anaheim, so the 18% increase is a bit deceptive.

Tom Staggs reported that the October thru December 2004 attendance was "flat" compared to 2003.

So while a lot of the attendance was due to the 50th celebrations, some of it was an adjustment due to the lower attendance due to the weather in 2004.

http://mousepad.mouseplanet.com/showthread.php?t=36841