Activision Blizzard Reports Strong Earnings; Hearthstone Revenue up 20% YoY

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Today was a good day for Activision Blizzard shareholders (ticker ATVI) as the company reported $1.46 billion in revenue for the quarter ended March 31, 2016 (vs $1.28 billion in the same quarter last year). These numbers handedly beat expectations and the company's stock soared over 6%, making the company worth a bit over $27 billion. Aside from posting stellar revenue growth, Activision Blizzard released some interesting data regarding several of their key products, most notably:

  • Hearthstone revenue increased 20% year over year (given that Hearthstone made about ~$20m in monthly revenue this time last year, it looks like the game is making about $24 million per month).
  • Overwatch is already performing exceptionally well with "millions of people playing" already during the beta. Expected to be Blizzard's biggest launch since Diablo 3.
  • Activision's monthly active users were 55 million (up 10% year over year). Blizzard's monthly active users were 26 million (up 23% year over year), and King Digital's monthly active users were 463 million (up 3% quarter over quarter). Company-wide monthly active users are 544 million.
  • 88% of the company's revenues come from digital sales - goodbye traditional retail distribution.
  • Console revenues represents 53% of total sales while PC is 27%, Mobile is 17% and other is 4%.

The ongoing strength of Hearthstone and the massive amount of people playing the Overwatch beta are the bright spot's in the company's earnings release. As usual, The Call of Duty franchise was also a bright spot with Black Ops III sitting at #1 on the list of best selling next-gen console games. Oddly no numbers were released about Heroes of the Storm aside from data about the Heroes of the Dorm broadcast on ESPN showing an increase in TV viewership. The only mention of World of Warcraft was that the game remains the "#1 Subscription MMORPG in the World" and that Legion will be launching on August 30, 2016 after the Q2 release of the Warcraft film. As expected, no Subscription data was released.

Source:

BusinessWire Press Release