(CelebrityAccess News Service) – EMI chairman Eric Nicoli gave the following speech at the 2003 EMI Group annual general meeting on July 9 in London. He said, "In the first three months of the financial year, we have been pleased to see recorded music sales outside Japan well up on last year's level. We had an especially strong performance in our US recorded music business and solid underlying performance in music publishing. This is in spite of continuing weakness in the global recorded music market. In particular, there has been a substantial decline in the Japanese market, leading to an unusual level of returns across the industry in that territory, which is likely to have an adverse effect on our half-year results. Those results will also reflect, in line with our budget, differences in the timing of receipts in EMI Music Publishing, which should reverse in the second half. Overall, we believe that the strategies we have in place should deliver full year results in line with our expectations, offsetting any first half shortfall."
"We have a strong release schedule in recorded music and we are continuing to focus on generating profitable sales through effective marketing, tight cost management and high quality releases. In music publishing, the release schedule is also strong and we are making progress in our efforts to build upon our varied revenue streams to mitigate the impact of a weak recorded music market."
"EMI remains at the forefront of industry initiatives to combat piracy in all its forms and we feel that progress is being made. In parallel, we are actively supporting the development of legitimate online music services and the early results are encouraging. While market conditions remain challenging, we are optimistic that market trends will improve in due course and that EMI will perform strongly within that context." –edited by Bob Grossweiner and Jane Cohen
