Pixar Earnings Soar on 'Finding Nemo' DVD

By Peter Henderson

"The Pixar brand is now the most powerful and trusted brand in animation," Jobs said on a conference call. "Some people are disquieted by change, but we feel very, very strongly that Pixar is on the right track and the best days are yet to come."

Fourth-quarter net income rose to $83.9 million, or $1.44 a share, from $17 million or 31 cents, in the year-ago quarter, easily topping the Wall Street consensus estimate of $1.27 per share, according to Reuters Research, a unit of Reuters Group Plc.

Revenue jumped to $164.8 million from $39.4 million.

Shares rose about 1.5 percent in after-hours trade.

The San Francisco bay area company forecast first-quarter earnings of about 30 cents per share, far below the Wall Street consensus of 57 cents, but analysts said Pixar had an extremely conservative track record of projections and did not give any sign of trouble on the horizon.

Analysts generally view Pixar as a blue chip creative franchise, but they differ on what a fair valuation for the stock would be.

"Here is a company that makes one film a year that costs around $100 million to make and generates approximately $500 million in pretax income. Does it get much simpler than that?" asked Harris Nesbitt Gerard analyst Jeff Logsdon, who rates the shares outperform.