activity Blizzard just released its Q1 2022 financial results. Sales totaled $1.77 billion, up from $2.28 billion a year earlier. Earnings were $0.64 per share compared to $0.98 a year ago. These results are below the expectations of analysts, who were hoping for something better.
Just like last quarter, Activision Blizzard presented its results without holding a conference. The reason for this is the ongoing takeover by Microsoft, which must be approved by the boards of directors of both companies and the Competition Commission by June 30, 2023.
Number of players and turnover
Sales are declining. Activision Blizzard explains it with a drop in sales of the Call of Duty franchise in recent months, but also with a certain production timing at Blizzard. Some costs are also increasing, particularly for legal departments, which is explained by the recent transaction with Microsoft.
- Activision recorded 100 million monthly players in the first quarter, down 7 million from the fourth quarter of 2021.
- Blizzard had 22 million monthly users, up from 2 million. It’s yet another downfall for Blizzard, whose games haven’t been this crowded in many years.
- King performs better than in Q4 with 250 million players.
- revenue
- Activision announces sales of 453 million with 59 million in profits.
- Blizzard announces sales of $265 million with profit of $53 million.
- King announces sales of $682 million with profit of $243 million.
It should be noted that digital revenue now accounts for 90% of the total, compared to just 5% for retail. Other revenue, notably the Overwatch League and the Call of Duty League, accounted for 5% of total revenue for the quarter.
On the platform side, consoles account for 27% of revenue. On the other hand, the CP increases to 22% instead of 25%. The mobile segment is clearly the most important, accounting for 46% of revenue in the past quarter.
Geographically, America takes the lion’s share, generating 57% of sales, compared to 30% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Asia accounts for 13% of sales.
blizzard
- In the fourth quarter, Blizzard had 24 million monthly active players, compared to 26 million in the previous quarter.
- Revenue is declining, partly explained by the Warcraft franchise’s development cycle. We know that several projects are underway, including one Warcraft mobileand that extension dragonflight is expected in early 2023.
- Diablo Immortal will be released on June 2nd for iOS and Android. The same date will see the arrival of a Open the beta on PC. More than 30 million players have already registered on mobile platforms.
- The development ofsurveillance 2 and diablo 4 going well. Diablo 4 internal testing is underway and Overwatch 2 external testing begins on April 26th.
With the eagerly awaited release of Diablo Immortal, which will also be released for the PC, the number of players should increase again in the second quarter.