Activision reported "better-than-expected" financial results for the
first quarter of 2013 today, but according to CEO Bobby Kotick, the
company expects to encounter a more challenging back half of the year.
The
publisher brought in net revenues of $1.32 billion during the quarter
that ended March 31, a 13 percent improvement over the same period in
2012 and 14.1 percent ahead of the company's projections. Activision
also showed a marked year-over-year jump in net income from $384 million
to $456 million, a 13.75 percent increase.
Activision's
earnings were buoyed by the impressive sales performance of StarCraft
2: Heart of the Swarm, which was the top-selling Windows PC game in
North America and Europe even though it launched with three weeks left
in the quarter. In addition, sell diablo 3 account, Skylanders Giants and Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 all continued to sell well.
But
the long-running MMO World of Warcraft suffered a precipitous drop of
1.3 million subscribers, about 14 percent of its user base, over the
course of the quarter. That leaves the game with 8.3 million paying
users worldwide — still enough to keep the game in the top spot when it
comes to subscription-based massively multiplayer online RPGs. During
Activision's first-quarter investor call this afternoon, Kotick said the
company expects World of Warcraft subscribers to be lower by the end of
2013.
"While we have had a solid start to the year, we
now believe that the risks and uncertainties in the back half of 2013
are more challenging than our earlier view, especially in the holiday
quarter," said Kotick in an investor release announcing Activision's
first-quarter results. Kotick cited the drop in World of Warcraft users,
the poor performance of the Wii U, uncertainty surrounding
next-generation consoles and increased competition.
The
competition will be stiff. Activision is set to launch a third
Skylanders title, Skylanders Swap Force, this fall into a market where
Disney Interactive's Disney Infinity — diablo iii account
a similar family-friendly title with physical toys — has already been
released. And while the next Call of Duty title, Call of Duty: Ghosts,
will be released Nov. 5, Activision said earlier this year that it
expects poorer sales performance from Ghosts than from Black Ops 2.
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