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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Robert Kotick Of Activision Blizzard Discusses Earnings, Call Of Duty: Black Ops

By Richard S. Mills


Activision Blizzard, Inc. publically released first quarter earnings last Monday, noting increases in net income and revenue. The videogame publishing company's success this quarter was partly due to the release of digital content for their Call of Duty series.

Activision saw a net income of $501 million in the first three months of the year, an increase of 32% from last year. An jump of 11% was also seen in the company's revenue, which grew to $1.45 billion. The most interesting data showed Activision Blizzard earning 30% of net revenue from digital channels. On non-GAAP basis, the split of digital and retail revenues was 50-50.

When asked about the company's financial future, CEO Bobby Kotick said, "We continue to shift our business towards digital delivery of content and establishing direct ongoing relationships with our audiences. While this quarter 50 percent of our revenues were digital, we are still scratching the surface."

During the quarter, Activision Blizzard released two online content packs for Call of Duty: Black Ops called Call of Duty: First Strike and Call of Duty: Black Ops Escalation. Both of the content packs broke Xbox LIVE 24-hour launch records. In addition to Call of Duty: Black Ops, Blizzard Entertainment's MMO World of Warcraft continued to perform well during the quarter.

However, the recent hack to Sony's PSN Network has forced Sony to shut down online gameplay, which is a concern for Activision as well.

"We're really concerned about it," said Kotick in an interview. "People are really disappointed." Because of the network being suspended, PlayStation gamers can only play Call of Duty alone. Despite this, Activision was still able to significantly increase its revenues from digital channels year over year.

With these impressive first quarter numbers, and no plans of slowing down, Activision Blizzard and Robert Kotick will be attracting the attention of gaming industry analysts for the rest of the calendar year.




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