Diablo III, Skylanders Push Activision Earnings Past Expectations

In its second quarter 2012 earnings call today, Activision Blizzard reported that sales of Diablo III and Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure put revenue even higher than the company was expecting. Diablo III in particular has been purchased more than 10 million times, while Skylanders sales continue to soar. CEO Bobby Kotick noted that, including toys, Skylanders was the best-selling game of the first half of 2012 and its toys have also outsold the best-selling action figure line in the United States and Europe. “Our performance was driven by strong audience demand for our great games,” Kotick said.

Activision Blizzard earned $1.05 billion overall, with $343 million (32%) coming from digital channels. Despite the successful quarter overall, World of Warcraft continued to lose subscribers, shedding more than one million (but remaining the number one subscription MMO). Meanwhile, Activision reported that a la carte Call of Duty downloadable content sales are down, though Call of Duty Elite continues to thrive with 12 million users overall, 2.3 million of which have purchased a Premium account. Earlier today, Activision also announced the final pieces of Modern Warfare 3 downloadable content.

Kotick also commented on parent company Vivendi’s potential sale of Activision Blizzard for the first time, saying “While we're unable to comment on Vivendi's behalf, we continue to remain focused on strong execution, the delivery of great games and the provision of superior shareholder returns as we have for over 20 years. Our strategy has served us very well in the past and will position us very well for the future.”
Looking forward, Activision Blizzard will launch World of Warcraft expansion Mists of Pandaria on September 25th, Skylanders Giants in October and Call of Duty: Black Ops II on November 13th. Beyond that, Blizzard continues to develop Starcraft II: Heart of the Swarm, Blizzard All-Stars (formerly Blizzard DOTA), and “an all-new MMORPG in the future,” which we last heard referred to as Titan.

Activision Blizzard expects to make $4.3 billion for this fiscal year, up $1 million from initial projections, but Kotick noted that “the next few years are going to be challenging.” He added that “when you look at the things that have an influence on the consumption of entertainment, unemployment data is very concerning, and when you look at what’s happening in Europe there are a lot of challenges that are going to continue to affect the microeconomic outlook. I think we are at the late end of the cycle, and the late end of a console cycle is always going to have its share of difficulties.”

Source : feeds.ign.com