Total revenue slipped to £3.29bn from £3.35bn in the same period last year.

Revenue slipped 1 percent, to $19.4 billion, for the company over all.

Revenues slipped 7.4 percent, to $978 million, from $1.05 billion a year earlier.

Over all, revenues in the third quarter slipped 2 percent from a year before, to $1.67 billion.

Revenue in the quarter slipped 2.7 percent, to $6.53 billion.

Revenue in the period, which ended March 31, slipped 8 percent, to $4.3 billion.

Revenue slipped three percent in the same period to some 5,700 billion yen.

But strategic advisory revenue slipped 18 percent, to $133 million.

The improvement came even as revenue slipped and the company spent more on sales incentives.

But the music industry's American revenue slipped last year to $14.3 billion from $14.6 billion in 1999.