With 4.5 billion euros in turnover and 500 million euros in net profit since April 2021, Electronic Arts is about to complete a new high-flying financial year. Despite the considerable drop in profits compared to the previous year, Electronic Arts is satisfied with its current financial year and recorded a record turnover in the last quarter of 2021 (1.6 billion euros).
The group prides itself on reigning over “540 million unique active accounts” and points out that players have spent 20% more time on EA games since the beginning of the fiscal year compared to the previous financial year. Special mention to Apex Legends which ended the year with an active player base up more than 30% compared to the end of 2020 and gained more than 28 million players in 2021. The battle royale alone is gone to generate close to a billion dollars over the 12 months of the current financial year. History of not spoiling anything, the launch of the game on mobile seems very close.
What about EA Sports games? They are doing well, thank you: Electronic Arts announces that FIFA 22 is the best-selling game of the year 2021 in Western markets, while Madden NFL 22 finishes 3rd best seller of the year in the United States. If you haven’t checked out the NPD’s annual review, the top two are Call of Duty: Vanguard and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War.
Electronic Arts could probably have had a nice word for It Takes Two, the most awarded game of the year and a commercial success with more than 3 million copies sold, not to mention an upcoming adaptation on small (or large) screen. It doesn’t matter, we do it for them. On the other hand, the performanceclearly above expectations” of F1 2021 is highlighted, with sales which exploded at the end of the year on the sidelines of the controversial end of the 2021 season.
Battlefield 2042 spoils the party, but EA plays it down
Passed over in silence in the financial results, if not to put on the back a reduction of the objectives of 100 million dollars because of its bad launch, the Battlefield 2042 case was mentioned in the wake of the conference. EA clearly confirms that the game clearly did not meet expectations and tries to explain its failure by the difficulties of working from home, by unexpected technical problems and by design choices that were not accepted by the community. However, management is trying to put the situation into perspective by noting that its once-important FPS does not even represent 10% of turnover and that the group achieved a record quarter despite this failure. Failing to calm the players, this observation will at least have the merit of relieving the shareholders. As announced the day before, DICE will do its best to correct the situation, but the specter of Anthem does not seem far away.
And otherwise ?
- Between October and December 2021, Electronic Arts’ turnover breaks down as follows: 976 million euros on consoles, 332 million on PC and 246 million on mobile. But the important statistic is that mobile is up 78% from the last quarter of 2020, a result of last year’s big acquisitions of Glu Mobile ($2.4 billion) and Playdemic ($1.4 billion). dollars).
- In 2021, 64% of Electronic Arts games sold on PlayStation and Xbox were downloaded, up from 62% a year earlier. From January to December 2021, revenue from game sales accounts for 1.6 billion euros, compared to 4.1 billion euros for in-game spending. The group’s net profit for the full year was 568 million euros.
Chris Suh replaces Blake Jorgensen
Chief Financial Officer of Electronic Arts and right-hand man to CEO Andrew Wilson for 10 years, Blake Jorgensen will be replaced by Chris Suh as of March 1. The departure of Blake Jorgensen had been scheduled since last fall and Electronic Arts seems to have found him a worthy successor since Chris Suh arrives straight from Microsoft and more precisely from the Cloud + AI group, of which he was the chief financial officer since January 2018. .
“Mr. Suh will report to CEO Andrew Wilson as a member of the management team. He will be responsible for EA’s accounting, financial planning and analysis, investor relations, global audit, compensation, SEC reporting, tax and treasury.“, explains the press release. Blake Jorgensen will remain at Electronic Arts until next summer to ensure the smooth transition of these responsibilities.