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EA Releases Financials, Battlefield 1 & Titanfall 2 Sales Pending
Electronic Arts held its earnings call for the company's second quarter (ending on September 30), and reported better-than-expected results for the period. The company has raised its guidance for the fiscal year, although it still posted a $38 million loss during the period.
The company also celebrated an increase in "engaged players" for Madden's Ultimate Team mode (up 20% from the same period last year), good performance for its mobile titles (sales up 22% year-upon-year), and a 22% increase in digital sales.
Sales of the latest FIFA iteration are up 13 precent from a similarly calculated period from last year, with the company saying that two-thirds of players "have engaged" with the new story mode, The Journey.
The performance for big titles Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2 were not tabulated due to their recent releases. Chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen said EA expects net sales for the company to be up 13% from the same period last year "driven by the combination of Battlefield 1 and Titanfall 2."
Recently, Cowen & Co analyst Doug Creutz told investors, "We believe that Titanfall 2 sales are going to be substantially disappointing, enough to offset upside from Battlefield 1." Creutz says he expects Titanfall 2 to sell in the five-to-six million range.
[Source: Electronic Arts (1), (2)]
Our Take
"Engaged" is a fuzzy definition, and for FIFA's The Journey in particular, it would be interesting to see how many players got far or finished the mode. A recently released infographic by EA states that 124 million matches were played in the mode's first month.
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