Warner Bros. Discovery Stock Drops On Worse-Than-Expected Q2 Results

Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. WBD shares are trading lower after-hours following Wednesday’s report of its second-quarter financial results. Here's a look at the details from the report. 

The Details: Warner Bros. Discovery reported quarterly sales of $9.713 billion, which missed the analyst consensus estimate of $10.071 billion by 3.55% and represents a 6.23% decrease from the same period last year. The company reported GAAP losses of $4.07 per share.

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Warner Bros. Discovery said Networks revenues decreased 8% to $5.272 billion compared to the prior year quarter, and Advertising revenue decreased 9%, primarily driven by domestic networks audience declines of 13% and the soft advertising market in the U.S.

Content revenue increased 5%, primarily driven by the timing of third-party licensing deals, partially offset by lower inter-segment content licensing to DTC.

Total DTC subscribers were 103.3 million, an increase of 3.6 million global subscribers from the first quarter, and DTC revenues decreased 5% to $2.568 billion year-over-year. Distribution revenue increased 1%, primarily driven by a 7% increase in subscribers following the launch of Max in Latin America and in Europe, partially offset by continued domestic linear wholesale subscriber declines.

“At Warner Bros. Discovery, our top priority is our global direct-to-consumer business and we are extremely pleased with the growing momentum we are seeing, as demonstrated by another strong quarter of growth with 3.6 million net adds, fueled by our ongoing international expansion and investment in high quality, diverse content,” said David Zaslov, CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery.

“In light of industry headwinds, we have and will continue taking bold steps, like reimagining our existing linear partnerships and pursuing new bundling opportunities, with the goal to get Max on the devices of more consumers faster and at a fraction of the acquisition cost, and we are seeing clear evidence that these and other actions we are taking will help drive segment profitability in the second half of the year and into 2025 and beyond,” added Zaslov.

WBD Price Action: According to Benzinga Pro, Warner Bros. Discovery shares are down 6.48% after-hours at $7.21 at the time of publication Wednesday.

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