Shares of Napster Inc. jumped Thursday after the online music retailer said it expects its revenue for the fiscal fourth-quarter, which ended March 31, totaled about $31 million, beating analysts’ predictions.
Napster shares rose 24 cents, or 14.9 percent, to $1.85. In the past year, the stock has traded between $1.33 and $4.46.
Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expect Napster will report $30.4 million in fourth-quarter revenue.
The company’s revenue totaled $29.1 million in the year-ago quarter.
Napster also said its subscriber base rose to about 760,000 by the end of March, and that its plans to expand the availability of its download sales to almost all portable music players and music-capable cell phones is on track to be completed in the first part of the calendar year.
Napster is moving from using WMA files that contain digital rights management, or DRM, copy protection technology to using unprotected MP3 files.
In a note to clients after the company’s announcement D.A. Davidson analyst L. Alan Davis raised his fourth-quarter revenue estimate to $31 million and lowered his adjusted per-share loss estimate to 6 cents from 8 cents.
Davis said the company’s total subscribers at the end of the quarter beat his forecast by 25,000.
