EMI says it is not selling enough records in the US

Blaming weak CD and DVD sales in the US, it said it now expects its profits for the year to 31 March 2007 to be 15% lower than 12 months previously.

Back in January it had earlier warned that profits for the year would be between 6% and 10% lower.

EMI also announced last month that two of its executives would be standing down after weak Christmas trading.

'Deteriorating market conditions'

It said on Wednesday that its North American sales had declined by 20% due to "continued and accelerating deterioration in market conditions".

Alain Levy, chief executive of EMI Music, the firm's recorded music business, stepped down with immediate effect in January.

EMI, the world's third-biggest music group, is now continuing with plans to cut company-wide costs by �110m.

Its artists include the Beatles, Robbie Williams and Pink Floyd.

Like all of the major record companies, EMI is struggling to cope with the growing trend of consumers choosing to download individual songs from the internet rather than buying whole albums in physical form.

And while the music download business is growing strongly, it still only makes up a small majority of most record firms' revenues.

EMI shares closed down 12% at 210.75 pence.