q3-2014
Latest
GameStop stock drops on declining sales, despite new hardware
GameStop's third quarter financial results show global sales are down for the quarter ended November 1, 2014, totaling $2.09 billion, compared to 2.11 billion over the same period last year. Net income fell to $56.4 million, as compared to $68.6 million during the third quarter last year. Despite this overall decline, the company says that sales of new hardware rose 147 percent, adding that after a year on the market, the installed base of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 is 73 percent larger than that of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 after their first year of availability. GameStop's bread-and-butter pre-owned sales, meanwhile, grew by 2.6 percent over last quarter. Sales of mobile devices, a new focus for GameStop, grew by 125 percent thanks to "continued expansion and strong results" for the company's new Spring Mobile stores. So, with all of this apparent growth, why the drop in sales? GameStop CEO Paul Raines pins the decline on Assassin's Creed Unity, which was delayed to November 11 earlier this year, meaning it couldn't be included in GameStop's third quarter results. Wall Street hasn't taken kindly to the news, with VentureBeat reporting that GameStop's stock has dropped by 13 percent.
Activision rakes in $753 million in revenue for Q3 [Update]
Activision reported $753 million in net revenue for the third quarter (ending September 30), a nine percent increase over the publisher's $691 million in revenue recorded for the same period last year. A record 67 percent of the company's revenue came from digital channels, according to Activision's Q3 2014 financial report. The company also reported a $23 million net loss, a sizable drop from its $56 million in income reported in the same quarter last year. Looking ahead, Activision raised its full-year projections by 2 percent thanks to the positive Q3 results. It now expects to earn $4.325 billion in net revenue in 2014, $1.492 billion of which is expected in the next quarter. Besides the continued sales of its hit MMO-meets-shooter, Destiny, Activision will report sales in Q4 for another FPS that just arrived this week, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. The publisher's popular mobile CCG Hearthstone will land on iPhone and Android phones early next year and Android tablets by the end of this year, having already reached 20 million downloads in September. Update: Activision also noted that Destiny reached 9.5 million registered players in its report. The publisher clarified to Engadget that "registered users" "refers to unique PlayStation Network / Xbox Live accounts, while multiple characters per account are not factored in." [Image: Activision]
Verizon thinks that the prepaid phone market is dead, and that's okay
If your response to the question "How much money did Verizon make in the last quarter" was "$3.79 billion in net profit," then congratulations. Big Red can afford to feel quite smug about its performance in the last three months, finding 1.53 million new wireless customers, of which 1.52 million took up monthly contracts. The tiny sliver of prepaid users has led the company to believe that the pay-as-you-go market is beginning to shrink as people move to monthly deals. Verizon is also happy to announce that it flogged 1.1 million LTE-equipped tablets this quarter, only a slight dip on the 1.15 million sold last time 'round. It's something that the company is happy to encourage, since people are likely to keep hold of their tablets for longer and are much cheaper to subsidize than comparable smartphones.
Disney Interactive marvels at a revenue surge in Q3 2014
Disney Interactive, the gaming arm of Disney's multi-appendaged corporate beast, is performing better than last year in the company's third quarter of 2014. Revenue for the Interactive business is up 45 percent to $266 million, while operating income is up from a $58 million loss last year to a $29 million surplus this year. "The increase in game sales was driven by Disney Infinity, which was released in the fourth quarter of the prior year, and the success of the Tsum Tsum and Frozen Free Fall mobile games," Disney's Q3 financial statement reads. "The decrease in product development costs was due to fewer titles in development and the benefit of restructuring activities." The Interactive division is the smallest revenue-generator at Disney again this quarter, outpaced by media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment (films), and consumer products. Overall revenue is up 8 percent in Q3 to $12.5 billion. This quarter's results set records at Disney. "We're extremely pleased with these results and we are also thrilled with the spectacular performance of Guardians of the Galaxy, which holds great promise as a new franchise for our company and once again reinforces the tremendous value of Marvel," The Walt Disney Company CEO Robert Iger says. Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes 2.0 Edition hits shelves on September 23 in North America, now with 100 percent more Guardians of the Galaxy. [Image: Disney]
TUAW liveblog of Apple Q3 2014 earnings call at 5 PM ET
Just a reminder to TUAW readers that today at 5 PM ET, we will be liveblogging the Apple Q3 2014 earnings call. Come back a little bit before 5 PM ET to settle into the liveblog, and you can listen to the call on Apple's live stream of the event. Note that our liveblog tool auto-updates, there's no need to refresh the page at all. The festivities usually start around 4:30 PM ET when Apple publishes the quarterly figures, so expect to see some information here on TUAW outlining the results. At 5 PM, the call starts, usually with Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Luca Maestri at the helm. This is Maestri's first solo flight as the new CFO, but he was on last quarter's call to provide background and answers. The usual cast of characters from Wall Street will be playing "stump the executives" with their regular round of questions both insightful and inane. It's always entertaining as they try to pry future product plans out of Cook, Maestri and any other execs on hand for the call.
Coming on Tuesday: Apple Q3 Earnings Call
Time flies! Next Tuesday is July 22, and that's the day that we'll hear from Apple executives about how the company did in its third fiscal quarter ending June 30, 2014. As usual, TUAW will liveblog the earnings call beginning at 5 PM ET, and you can listen in on the proceedings via Apple's livestream. With the earnings call just around the corner, Fortune's Philip Elmer-DeWitt polled 26 analysts to see how they thought iPad sales fared in the last quarter. The chart below shows quite a range, from Asymco's Horace Dediu on the bullish end with sales of 16 million tablets and Canaccord Genuity's T. Michael Walkley being the big bear with an estimate of 12.26 million iPads sold. The analysts highlighted in green are independents; those in blue are professional analysts. The consensus estimate is that there will be a slight year over year decrease of about .19 percent in sales since Q3 2013, representing a still-significant 14.43 million units sold. I tend to agree more with Dediu's numbers, so if I were to venture a guess, I'd go with Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty and estimate 15 million sold. That's an increase of 1.7 percent over Q3 2013. What's your estimate on iPad sales? Let us know in the comments. Table by Fortune, Philip Elmer-DeWitt
New Apple Store graphics and other news highlights
It's the first day of July and the second half of 2014, and the beginning of Apple's fourth fiscal quarter of the year. While we'll need to wait a few weeks (see the third item below for details!) to hear how the past three months fared in the world of Apple, there's still plenty of news about our favorite fruit company: New graphics at Apple Stores. Those beautiful, big wall graphics at Apple Stores used to highlight the company's products against a stark white background. Now the images are beginning to show people using devices like the iPhone 5s and iPad. The graphics are more colorful, but darker, and somewhat mirror Apple's recent advertising campaigns including the "Your Verse" iPad ads and the new "Parenthood" ad. AppleCare+ purchase window extended. The standard (without accidental damage coverage) AppleCare plan is being discontinued today in the US, Canada and Japan. Previously, AppleCare+ had to be purchased within 30 days of buying an iPhone or iPad. Beginning today, that purchase window is extended to 60 days so that customers can decide whether or not they need the extended support provided by the plan. Apple's Q3 2014 Earnings Call is scheduled for July 22, 2014 at 5 PM ET. As usual, TUAW will host a liveblog of the event covering the highlights and the humorous attempts by Wall Street analysts to get Apple execs to spill the beans on new products. The new upgraded, lower-priced 16GB iPod touch rolls out around the world. Remember the new iPod touch that debuted last week? It's now available in the UK, Germany, Italy and other countries worldwide. The new device includes a 5-megapixel iSight camera and new color choices for US$199.
Ubisoft sees 35% drop in sales
Ubisoft reported 520 million euros ($709.5 million) in sales for the third quarter of the 2013 - 2014 fiscal year, which ended December 31, 2013. The sales represent a 35.2 percent drop year-over-year. Ubisoft reported total sales of 813 million euros ($1.1 billion) for the first nine months of the fiscal year, a 24.8 percent decrease compared to the nine-month-period earnings one year prior. Additionally, it reported a 4 percent decrease year-over-year in digital sales, which amounted to 53 million euros ($72.3 million). Ubisoft cited the "console transition period" among the reasons for the company's losses in the quarter, pointing to back-catalog sales of 53 million euros ($72.3 million), a 21 percent contraction. The publisher also saw "lower-than-expected sales" for Rocksmith 2014, but said it shipped 10 million units of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag. All in all, it expects approximately 1,000 million euros ($1.36 billion) in sales for the full fiscal year 2013 - 2014. [Image: Ubisoft]
Capcom net income slides 10%, Monster Hunter 4 sells 4 million
Capcom reported a net income of 5,957 million yen ($58.3 million) for the first nine months of the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014. This marks a 10.3 percent decrease year-over-year when compared with the net income of 6,645 million yen ($65 million) reported for the first nine months of the last fiscal year. Overall net sales were up year-over-year by 3.5 percent to 75,221 million yen ($736.4 million) while operating income and ordinary income saw year-over-year decreases of 13.4 percent and 8 percent, respectively. Capcom said the Japanese home video game market was in a "transition period" as the nine-month period drew to a close, thanks especially to comparatively late arrivals of next-generation consoles in the region; both the PS4 and Xbox One have yet to launch in Japan. The publisher did credit its successes to the launch of Monster Hunter 4, which topped 4 million in sales, bringing the series total to 28 million units. Additionally, Xbox One launch game Dead Rising 3 topped one million copies shipped. Capcom's digital business (both DLC and full game downloads) amounted to 56,067 million yen ($548.9 million) in net sales. [Image: Capcom]
Take-Two revenue nears $2 billion in Q3 2014 because GTA5
Take-Two's GAAP net revenue was $1.86 billion in Q3 2014, up from $415.77 million in Q3 2013 and led by sales of Grand Theft Auto 5, NBA 2K14 and WWE 2K14, the company reported today. Though Grand Theft Auto 5 launched during Q2 2014, Take-Two pushed its results to Q3, citing the later launch of Grand Theft Auto Online. Grand Theft Auto 5 has shipped 32.5 million copies and NBA 2K14 has shipped more than 5 million copies, making it 2K's most successful basketball game to date. Take-Two's net revenue got a kick from digital content sales, a segment that grew 42 percent year-over-year to $132.8 million (in non-GAAP terms). Digital sales were boosted mainly by Borderlands 2, BioShock Infinite, and the Grand Theft Auto and NBA 2K franchises, Take-Two reported. There's no mention of Grand Theft Auto 5 for PC or next-gen consoles in Take-Two's statement, but CEO Strauss Zelnick said there's more news to come: "Looking ahead, we have a robust pipeline of both new intellectual properties and offerings from our proven franchises in development, including more than 10 unique titles for the next-generation consoles."
Grand Theft Auto 5 ships 32.5 million copies
The total number of Grand Theft Auto 5 copies Take-Two has shipped to date now exceeds 32.5 million. The number comes from the company's fiscal third quarter 2014 earnings report, in which it declared its money-making game the "best-selling video game of 2013," citing data from NPD. By comparison, the publisher also noted the entire NBA 2K series has shipped 35 million units to date. The number of copies shipped by Take-Two doesn't precisely indicate the number sold to customers, of course. GTA 5 has sold well regardless, earning an estimated $1 billion for the publisher in its first three days at retail. It sold 3.67 million copies at retail in the UK in 2013, leading all games in the region.
EA reports $308 million loss in Q3 2014
Electronic Arts reported a net loss of $308 million in the fiscal third quarter of 2014, a period of three months stretching from October 1, 2013 through the end of December. The company reported a net revenue of $808 million, which compares unfavorably to the $922 million reported during the same quarter last year. It is a 16.3 percent increase from last quarter's reported $695 million earnings, however. EA reported that 50.7 percent ($410 million) of its earnings came from digital sales, calling out a 60 percent increase in FIFA Ultimate Team, Madden NFL Ultimate Team and NHL Ultimate Team sales on a non-GAAP basis (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). It reported a trailing twelve-month total revenue of $3.66 billion, and projects its revenue for fiscal 2014 (the year ending March 31) to be $3.52 billion, $1.07 billion of which is expected to come in the next quarter.
