Activision Blizzard beats second quarter growth expectations

Activision Blizzard beat its internal estimates to report significant growth in sales and earnings for the second quarter of 2011.

The publisher posted $335 million in profits, up 53 per cent from the $219 million reported during the same period last year, while sales grew from $967 million in the second quarter of 2010 to $1.1 billion, driven by a strong performance in the digital sector. Online sales were up 27 percent year-over-year to a record $423 million, representing 37 per cent of the company's net revenues.

"Our better-than-expected second-quarter performance was driven by record digital sales of our online-enabled franchises,” Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said. “For the six month period, net revenues from digital channels grew more than 20 per cent, driving record operating margin and EPS growth of more than 50 per cent.”

Activision said Call Of Duty: Black Ops players have logged more than 2.2 billion hours of online gameplay since release last November, with total unique online players up 30 per cent over 2009’s Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 during the first eight months following each game's release. Remarkably, year-to-date revenues from COD digital content rank among those generated by 2011’s top five retail titles. A fourth Black Ops DLC pack, Resurrection, will launch for Xbox 360 on August 23 and at a later date for PS3 and PC. It will offer five Zombies maps, one brand new and four remastered versions of those featured in 2008’s COD: World At War.

Black Ops was the best-selling game in the US and Europe during the first half of 2011, while World Of Warcraft: Cataclysm and StarCraft II: Wings Of Liberty were among the second quarter’s top ten selling PC titles.

Kotick added: "Looking to the balance of the year, while we have numerous releases we believe our audiences will be especially excited by three key properties - Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, our new online service Call Of Duty Elite and Skylanders Spyro's Adventure. To date, pre-orders for Modern Warfare 3 have significantly exceeded the pre-orders for Black Ops at this time last year. In addition, we believe that Call Of Duty Elite, which was built for Modern Warfare 3 and is expected to launch with the game on November 8, should redefine social connectivity for multiplayer gaming." It was also announced this evening that Modern Warfare 3 will release on Wii later this year, the game having previously been confirmed for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.