British music group EMI has announced a first-half loss of £30.6m sterling due to falling CD sales, fewer product launches and an accounting fraud at its Brazilian business.
The interim loss compared with a net profit of £36.7m the same time last year.
However, EMI said it would be lifted by soaring digital sales and a heavier schedule of album launches, from the likes of Joss Stone, Robbie Williams and Norah Jones.
The strength of the product launches combined with 'continued strong growth in digital revenues and on-going cost discipline' would help drive results this year, the group said.
The publisher of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles said that revenues fell 6.1% to £867.9m in the six months to the end of September.
EMI had announced last month the discovery of fraud at its recorded music business in Brazil. The company said that the fraud had inflated earnings there by around £9m.
Underlying pre-tax profit, stripping out the one-off profit impact of the fraud, stood at £18.6m, compared with £41m in the prior year.
Meanwhile, CD sales have been under pressure since the start of the decade, due to illegal file-sharing websites and a boom in legal downloads.
But EMI said today that digital revenues rocketed over 68% in the first half, accounting for 8.5% of group turnover, much higher than the 5.4% it represented last year.
