MUSIC giant EMI lifted annual profits by almost 13 per cent after seeing revenues from its digital content more than double during the year.

The group, which has Coldplay, Gorillaz and Robbie Williams on its roster of artists, said its music division outperformed the rest of the industry as group underlying profits rose to é159.3m in the year to March 31.

Downloads of its music content showed the strongest growth as EMI, the world's third-largest music company, reported digital sales increased to é112.1m from é46.9m a year earlier.

That included strong digital sales of Coldplay's latest album X&Y, which was the biggest-selling digital album release in the US.

As well as strong performances in the year from Coldplay and Robbie Williams, EMI said new and developing artists such as Radja, Corinne Bailey Rae and Raphael had contributed strongly to its performance.

EMI chairman Eric Nicoli said: "EMI Music has significantly outperformed the industry, gaining market share in almost all territories including the US."

The company said strong growth in downloaded music offset a 5.3 per cent decline in physical sales for the industry as a whole.

Dynamic

EMI said the digital environment for its music was now "extremely dynamic" with new entrants, services and devices, while it said it continued to make progress in combating both physical and digital piracy.

In the UK and Ireland market, physical sales declined by an estimated 4.9 per cent but digital sales increased by 170 per cent to give a total industry decline of three per cent.

The full-year results came as investors awaited the next move from the company in its long-running attempt to secure a takeover of Warner Music Group, which is home to music from Madonna and James Blunt.

While Warner rejected an approach from EMI earlier this month, the UK company has said it still believed a tie-up would be attractive to both sets of shareholders.

EMI has tabled a bid of é2.2bn for Warner and is expected to come back with a higher offer.

Mr Nicoli said: "We think this strong set of results shows that EMI is thriving in its own right, and I believe we've created a strong platform to pursue the possible acquisition of Warner Music Group. The industrial logic is compelling."

A combined EMI-Warner Music would rival Universal Music and Sony-BMG, and analysts say a merger would produce savings of hundreds of millions of pounds.