Napster has warmed the hearts of investors by upping its fourth quarter revenue forecast.

The song renter sees Q4 sales reaching $28m – a $2m hike over a previous forecast dished out in February. Those looking for any profit guidance were disappointed as Napster remained tight-lipped on that front. It reported a $10m loss in the third quarter.

Investors pushed Napster's stock up 5 per cent to $4.37 per share on the fresh Q4 prediction. Napster's Q4 closed on March 31, and the company will report full results on May 16.

“Napster concludes our fiscal year 2007 with over 830,000 paid subscribers.” said CEO Chris Gorog. “We also enjoyed healthy organic growth adding another 40,000 net paid subscribers during the quarter.”

The legal Napster remains trapped in a non-iPod world and has enjoyed limited success with its subscription/rental model. For example, Napster has given away tunes to hundreds of thousands of college students but only turned 45,000 of them into paying customers. ®

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