EMI making up ground in race to be top of the pops

THE good news for EMI shareholders is that it has moved up to become the world's second-biggest recorded music publisher. The bad news is that recorded music is a rapidly shrinking industry.

The latest industry survey shows EMI increased market share last year from 12.2% to 13.4%. The group is said to have lifted, or at least held, market share in every region of the world, with the most significant growth in North America, Japan, Asia and Australasia.

Artists such as Coldplay and Norah Jones, along with The Beatles, helped drive up sales. Norah Jones' album Come Away With Me was the best-selling industry-wide album of 2003 with more than 10.5 million copies sold.

Directors must be wishing the company's share price repeated that performance. The shares are about 220p, some way below the year's high of 278p, achieved in the spring. EMI sank into the red last month with losses of Pounds 52 million and warned it did not expect any growth from the music market this year with sales industrywide expected to be at best flat or to show a fall of 4%.

That followed a dive of almost 6% last year. Music pirates are continuing to take a heavy toll and EMI is pinning future growth on internet downloads.

BT has been ringing all the right numbers in the City, with the shares threatening to break through their 200p resistance level for the first time in a year. It was the heaviest traded stock yesterday as more than 200 million shares changed hands.

Its fans say BT has traded in a 20p band this year and is almost certain to stage a breakout as increasing numbers of institutional investors pile back in after a series of meetings with the firm.

The price remains way below its record 10531/2p at the height of the technology boom four years ago.

The group's fortunes subsequently nosedived as debt soared and competition from mobile phone operators intensified. However, BT has repositioned itself in the marketplace and its emphasis on broadband is paying dividends.

Telecoms experts claim free phone calls on the internet are a positive move for the likes of BT and will cause problems for mobiles operators.

Yesterday's flurry of activity was flavoured by speculation the group may have had talks about a joint venture with one of the big computer firms.

Broker UBS repeated its neutral rating on international banking group Standard Chartered after raising its 12-month target to 1000p from 975p.

Boots director Paul Bateman has picked up 5960 shares, stretching his holding to 177,393. MFI rallied from this week's downgrading by broker Credit Suisse First Boston in heavy turnover of almost 30 million shares.

US investment giant Brandes has once again trimmed its stake in Marks Spencer. The group has sold 3278 American depositary receipts and 125,400 ordinary shares to cut its holding in the retailer to 12.41%. Brandes raised $18 million (Pounds 10 million) at the beginning of the month when it offloaded almost 500,000 ADRs, one of which is the equivalent of six ordinary shares.

Overnight, investors endured a lacklustre session on Wall Street where the Dow closed little moved. Dealers say investors are waiting to see how much higher the Federal Reserve pushes interest rates later this month.

In Tokyo this morning, the Nikkei 225 Average closed down 33.82 points at 11,607.90.

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