Activision Blizzard's Impressive Results Sooth UK Fiasco
The merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard has been blocked, but the latter company can be pleased with its financial results.
Yesterday, the UK's CMA blocked the merger between Microsoft and publisher Activision Blizzard. To wipe away the tears of the second of these companies there are excellent financial results for the first quarter of this year, just published in a new report.
- In the first three months of 2023, Activision Blizzard's revenues totaled $2.38 billion.
- Net profit closed at $740 million.
- These results are significantly higher than in the same period of 2022. Revenues increased by 35% and net profit by as much as 87%.
- Everything played out just perfectly for Activision Blizzard in the first quarter of this year. The company recorded revenue growth for each of its major brands, namely Call of Duty, Candy Crush, Warcraft, Overwatch and Diablo.
Activision's division alone (that is, without the games of Blizzard and King) brought in $580 million in revenue, 28% more than in the first quarter of 2022. This is not surprising, as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II proved to be a much bigger success than Call of Duty: Vanguard, and on top of that, last November also saw the debut of Call of Duty: Warzone 2.0. Interestingly, however, the number of active users in Activision games fell by 2%. Those who remain are simply spending a lot more money.
The power of Candy Crush
Blizzard's productions, on the other hand, brought in $435 million in revenue, 62% higher than in the first quarter of last year. It also reported a 23% increase in active users compared to the same period in 2022. Here, however, there is some cause for concern, as their number dropped by 40% compared to the last quarter of 2022, when Overwatch 2 debuted on the market .
The company's top-earning division remains the casual game-focused studio King. The team's titles generated $739 million in revenue in the first three months of this year, 8% more than in the same period of 2022. What's more, Candy Crush has been the top-earning brand in the US App Store continuously for 23 quarters.
Stock market decline under control
Excellent financial results calmed some investors disappointed by the blocking of the merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. The shares of the latter company recorded a drop of only 10% - probably it would have been much greater if not for the favorable numbers from the publisher's latest report.
