Audible Comments on Monetizing Podcasting, Satellite Radio (ADBL 3Q05 Conf Call Quotes)

Audible (ticker: ADBL) rose about 8% after hours, following a solid 3Q05 earnings release from the digital audio company. Key data points and excerpts from the Audible conference call:

Earnings: Net loss of $189,030 (3Q04: profit of $483,884)

Revenue: $16.8 million (3Q04: $9.3 million)

Percentage of revenue from Apple iTunes store: 14% (same as 2Q05 and 1Q05)

Cost of consumer content revenue: $5.9 million or 35.9% of consumer content revenue (36.2% in 2Q05)

New AudibleListener customers in quarter: 61,900

We've previously addressed how independent podcasts could undermine Audible's business -- Audible commented on the matter in its previous conference call. In this quarter's conference call, Audible CEO Donald Katz addressed the company's plans to monitize podcasting:

We are expecting podcasting to be additives on both the revenue and profit lines in 2006. And our discussions with media companies about podcasting and the commerce revenue streams we can build for the creators of premium programming has ratified the sense one draws from the business pages. Big media companies have indeed reawakened to the web, to digital media in general… companies that actually make premium content or at least content that we believe we can both podcast and sell are very interested in what we’re up to… people in the premium space are interest in using it for snippets and promotions. Our partners at American Public Media… are using podcasts to actually drive people to their www.audible.com premium product.

And addressed Audible's plans to catch the satellite radio wave with the leading sat radio company:

[Q - Mark Argento] Could you talk a little bit about the XM deal and when you think you can get into the dashboard of a car?

[A – Donald Katz, CEO] …we have set forward according to plan with XM… in ’06 we begin to come together on the technology side, and the focus at the beginning is their handheld lines. The point is that the chip integration that’s involved is obviously transferable into dashboards.

(Quotes are from the CCBN StreetEvents transcript.)

Related:

• Is Apple’s embrace of Podcasting a threat to Audible? (ADBL)
• Audible discusses Podcasting (ADBL 2Q05 conf call quotes)
• XM Satellite Radio’s Subscriber Base, Net Losses Grow (XMSR 3Q05 Conf Call Quotes)
• All Seeking Alpha Network articles on Audible.
• The complete list of companies (and links to articles about them) covered by The Consumer Electronics Stock Blog.