The red carpet for Blockbuster Inc.'s (NYSE:BBI) first-quarter earnings call on Thursday after market close won't be a star-studded event. The earnings call will likely be more like a gathering of people in a hospital recovery room discussing how long an ailing patient will survive.
For now, Dallas-based Blockbuster has bought itself some more time by getting access to a $250 million loan due September 2010. But competition from DVD mail-order service Netflix Inc. (NASDAQ:NFLX), Amazon.com Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AMZN) Unbox, on-demand services from cable as well as a host of Internet competitors such as YouTube.com and Hulu.com has made earning a buck difficult for Blockbuster. The company is looking to rebound from a $374 million loss on revenue of $5.3 billion in 2008.
But despite those dour numbers, analysts surveyed by Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) expect Blockbuster to register earnings of 15 cents per share for the first quarter.
Expectations seem to be that Blockbuster will continue to shed some of its existing 7,400 stores to cut costs. The company will likely expand the methods deployed to deliver content to keep up with its diverse competition. Already, Blockbuster has a mail-order service to combat Netflix and recently inked a deal for an alliance with TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ:TIVO) that will deliver Blockbuster content to TiVo boxes. Meanwhile, Blockbuster is working with NCR Corp. (NYSE:NCR) to install DVD vending machines in stores to appeal to
consumers who prefer to get movies from kiosks set up in supermarkets
and other retail outlets.
Blockbuster's other problem: its heavy debt load of $1.9 billion with a CCC credit rating. With a business that is constantly evolving, the company needs to pay down its debt to free up money for investing. Unfortunately, the revenue hasn't increased nough to do so. - Gerald Magpily
Corporate Dealmaker: Blockbuster storyline continues upward arch
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This article overstates Blockbuster's debt by over $1 billion. Kindly issue a correction and take your factcheckers to task for this blatant misstatement.