Tag Archives: ea full-year financials 2008

Missed this one. EA said in its full-year earnings call last night that its going to launch two new online subs services in the coming year.

“On PC, our subscription revenue streams continue to grow with our Pogo and Warhammer businesses,” said CEO John Riccitiello.

“We also plan to introduce two additional online subscription services later in the fiscal year.”

Riccitiello expanded slightly in response to a question by Lazard’s Colin Sebastian.

“We think they’re consumer propositions first, and we want to use the best possible public relations to bring those to market in a way that will benefit the titles,” he said.

“We’ll certainly be communicating what they are on or around the next call.”

Get the rest of the news from the call here. Thanks, GI.

Seeking Alpha’s done its usual thang, posting the entire transcript from EA’s full-year and fourth quarter earnings call last night.

Get all the news from it here. There were some choice quotes in that call, so if you were too busy last night watching Arsenal getting humiliated to listen to John and the gang wax lyrical about the future, now’s your chance to catch up.

What do you call a company that bins $1 billion in a year, trims its Q4 losses, takes 15 percent more revenue than the previous year and makes the entire thing genuinely sound good on the telephone? Electronic Arts! We love you, John. You’re the greatest.

EA announced full-year figures last night while you were watching the football/wanking/staring at the wall. Here’s what happened:

• EA loses over $1 billion in fiscal 2009, cuts Q4 loss
• EA full-year earnings call – the full transcript
• EA: Two new online subs services this year
• Riccitiello – Negative comps to continue until June
• Riccitiello: Current hardware cycle to be “very extended”
• Warhammer Online ended March with 300,000 subs
• EA released more PC games than anything else last year
• EA: Mobile revenues rose 24% last year
• EA: The PC is “rapidly becoming the largest gaming platform in the world”
• EA’s Wii revenue nearly doubles to 14% compared to last year
• EA to release 30 games on iPhone this year
• Spore sells 2 million copies
• FIFA 09, Madden NFL 09, Need for Speed Undercover each sell 5 million copies

EA showed it released more games for PC than for any other platform last year, with 360 leading the company’s focus for console hardware.

Releases for fiscal 2009, ending March this year:

• PC: 32
• Xbox 360: 26 games
• PS3: 23 games
• DS: 22
• Wii: 21
• PS2: 14 games
• PSP: 8
• Xbox: 1

Good for you, PC. You’re going to be “the largest gaming platform in the world,” don’t you know.

EA posted a $1 billion loss yesterday.

EA said in its full-year earnings yesterday that its mobile revenues rose 24 percent year-over-year in the period, up to $189 million.

For the fiscal fourth quarter, EA Mobile recorded $48 million in revenues, up 14 percent over the previous year.

The company said it plans to release 30 iPhone games in the coming year.

EA recorded a $1 billion loss in total for fiscal 2009.

EA CFO Eric Brown said in the publisher’s Q4 earnings call last night that PC is to become the dominant hardware in gaming.

He said digital game distribution nearly doubled in revenue year-over-year to $80 million, while CEO John Riccitiello said digital revenue in total had risen to $400 in the last fiscal year.

“This is a big year for us,” said Brown. “The online part of our business is growing as much as 60 percent year over year.”

“In terms of distribution, the way we look at a lot what’s happening in the future is, we’ve got probably a billion PCs out there in the world,” he continued. “Very rapidly the PC is becoming the largest gaming platform in the world, just not in a packaged-good product.”

EA reported a $1 billion loss for fiscal 2009 yesterday. Thanks, Shacknews.

EA released it’s fourth quarter and fiscal year 2009 earnings earlier and according to the report, 14 percent of it’s revenue came from Wii titles, compared to 8 percent the previous year.

Twenty-one titles were released for Wii last year, and with PS3 games providing 16 percent of revenue and Xbox 360 generating 24 percent, Wii is catching up.

Tiger Woods PGA Tour 10, Ea Sports Active and Grand Slam Tennis are expected to help Wii title sales increase at EA thanks to MotionPlus.

Full financial report can be viewed here.

Speaking in a just-ended investor call, EA boss John Riccitiello has reiterated EA Sports president Peter Moore’s sentiments on the state of the hardware cycle last month, saying we’re nowhere near to seeing a full switch over in main platforms.

“Big changes are not something we’re seeing the need for in the medium term, nor do we expect that in the medium term,” he said.

“I think that arms race – I can never say that it’s done – but the relevance of doing that faster and faster seems to have subsided.

“We’re projecting… [the current generation] to be a very extended cycle.”

Peter Moore told VG247 in London recently that he had seen “no inkling” of future platforms from the major hardware companies, and that the current generation could be the “biggest ever” in terms of sales.

EA CEO John Riccitiello has predicted that negative comps for the industry will continue until June.

The company boss said that retail was continuing to show wary behaviour to stocking games products, instead favouring other sectors.

US games sales dropped 17 percent year-over-year in March, down to $1.43 billion from $1.72 billion in March 2008.

EA execs just confirmed in an investor conference call that Warhammer Online has 300,000 subscribers at the end of March 2009.

The company reported an FY2009 loss of $1.08 billion earlier today.

The MMO launched in September 2008.

The EA financial call is ongoing and the firm has just said that 30 games will be released for iPhone this year.

No titles were mentioned, a release window, or any other information was handed out.

Sounds like EA likes the iPhone though.

The company released it’s full earnings report earlier.

More to come.

Spore has sold more than 2 million units, EA just confirmed as part of its full-year financials.

The Maxis game was tipped as a driver in a year that saw revenue grow 15 percent to to $4.2 billion.

Spore has now seen more than 100 million creatures created for the game.

While Maxis may be celebrating, however, EA probably isn’t: the firm announced losses in excess of $1 billion for the 12 months ending March 2009 today.

According to EA’s full-year ’09 financials – just released – FIFA 09, Madden NFL 09 and Need for Speed Undercover each sold over 5 million copies.

Loads of sports and racing fans out there, apparently.

The earnings call is set to go off any minute, and we are listening – so keep checking back for updates.

EA’s reported a shell-shock $1.08 billion loss for the financial year ending March 2008.

Revenue for the period was up to $4.2 billion, a 15 percent rise from the previous year’s $3.6 billion.

“EA’s strong cost actions in Q4 FY09 together with our investments in our digital service businesses will set us up for a stronger FY10,” said CEO John Riccitiello.

“EA is well positioned with the right strategies in a growing industry.”

The company said that more than 31 games in the year sold more than 1 million units, up from 27 in the previous year.

Q4 loss was $42 million, or 13 cents a share, narrowed from a loss of $94 million, or 30 cents a share in the same period last year.

Q4 revenue was $860 million, down $267 million compared with $1.13 billion for the prior year.

Full press release below.

More »

EA’s expected to announced a loss for its fourth fiscal quarter tomorrow, with a Reuters poll pointing to a 43 cents per share downside on sales of $631.9 million.

“While the company may not deliver significant revenue upside compared to consensus, we think that prospects for very strong June results will embolden management to deliver some upside in the March quarter,” said Wedbush Morgan’s Michael Pachter in a note today.

Watch for full-year figures and news tomorrow after NYSE close.