Electronic Arts has surprised the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street by reporting an unexpected first-quarter profit, thanks to increased downloads of its games.
EA's digital business, where players download digital versions of games, provides the outfit with higher margins than physical disks so an uptick in these sales brings it more cash.
The company forecast revenue of about $1.08 billion, including a change in deferred revenue from online-based games. Analysts were expecting $1.11 billion.
Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen said that EA is releasing its latest FIFA game four days before the September-quarter ends, while it stops accounting for revenue from its digital business about five days before the quarter end.
Jorgensen estimated digital sales from the latest FIFA game would have netted $75 million in revenue, which the company will now see in the third quarter.
Strong digital sales, particularly of "FIFA Ultimate Team" on console and "Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes" on mobile, boosted EA's results in the first quarter which is usually pretty pants.
EA's adjusted revenue fell 1.6 percent to about $682 million in the three months ended June 30. Analysts on average were a revenue of $650.7 million.
Adjusted sales from EA's digital business rose 6.8 percent to about $568 million and accounted for 83.3 percent of total revenue.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks