What To Expect From Disney's (DIS) Q1 Earnings, Media Revenue & More

Shares of Disney (NYSE:DIS) climbed slightly during regular trading Monday, just one day before the entertainment giant is scheduled to release its Q1 fiscal 2019 financial results. So, let’s see what investors should expect from Disney’s top and bottom lines, along with key business units, after the closing bell Tuesday.

Revenue & Earnings Outlook

Disney is coming off a quarter that saw its revenues surge 12% and top estimates on the back of impressive results at the box office. Yet, our current Zacks Consensus Estimate calls for the company’s quarterly revenues to fall 1.10% from the prior-year period to reach $15.18 billion.

Meanwhile, Disney’s adjusted quarterly earnings are projected to fall nearly 17% to $1.57 per share. No one ever likes to see earnings drop, but the firm’s bottom-line performance could look even worse compared to last quarter’s 38% earnings growth. DIS has also earned some negative earnings estimate revisions for Q1 and its current full year over the last 30 days, which helps Disney land a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) at the moment.

Disney stock closed regular trading Monday up 0.45% to $111.80 per share. This represented a nearly 7% downturn from its 52-week high of $120.20. Disney is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) that sports a “B” grade for Growth in our Style Scores system.

Media Networks

Moving on, it’s important to understand what to expect from the company’s individual business units on Tuesday. Luckily, we can turn our exclusive non-financial metrics consensus estimate file to help us.

Wall Street will pay close attention to the conglomerate’s largest division as it houses its sports entertainment leg ESPN. Disney’s Media Networks is projected to see its revenues pop 0.7% to touch $6.288 billion, which would fall below last quarter’s 9% expansion. Disney’s cable unit is expected to climb about 0.5% to hit $4.518 billion and its broadcast division is projected to pop just over 1%.

Parks/Resorts & Studio Entertainment

Disney’s Park and Resorts revenue is expected to surge roughly 8.5% to $5.591 billion. This would fall nearly in line with last quarter’s 9% expansion. On top of that, Studio Entertainment revenue is projected to reach $2.115 billion. This would mark over a 15% decline from Q1 2018 in what is Disney’s most sporadic business.

Bottom Line

Clearly, these results aren’t likely to inspire a great deal of confidence. With that said, investors need to pay close attention to any updates about Disney’s deal to acquire key Twenty-First Century Fox (NASDAQ:FOXA) assets and its streaming TV service that is set to challenge Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) , Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) , Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) , and AT&T (NYSE:T) .

Make sure to come back to Zacks for a full breakdown of Disney’s actual results after the company releases its Q1 2019 earnings after the closing bell Tuesday.

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