PARIS (Agefi-Dow Jones)–At the end of a first quarter of 2022-2023 marked by a decline in its activity, the video game publisher Ubisoft maintained its annual objectives on Thursday, while shifting the launch of the game “Avatar: Frontier of Pandora”.
For its financial year, which began on April 1, the group is still aiming for “net bookings” – the equivalent of turnover – in “significant growth”. Ubisoft also confirmed its objective of non-IFRS operating profit of around 400 million euros. It had reached 407.6 million in the 2021-2022 financial year.
Over the current financial year as a whole, the FactSet consensus expects net bookings of 2.54 billion euros and non-IFRS operating profit of 370 million euros.
At the same time, Ubisoft said it expected “net bookings” of around 270 million euros for its second quarter 2022-2023 (July-September). The FactSet consensus expects 382 million euros.
Regarding its new launches, the group announced the postponement of the release of the game “Avatar: Frontier of Pandora” to 2023-2024. This brand represents a “major multi-year opportunity” said Ubisoft. The group has also shifted an “unannounced smaller-scale” game to 2023-24, originally scheduled for 2022-23. “These additional development times are a reflection of the current constraints imposed on productions across the sector”, explained Ubisoft.
At the same time, the group announced the signing of a “new high-value mobile licensing partnership” for one of its flagship (“AAA”) brands, without giving further details.
Between April and June 2022, the inventor of Rabbids published net bookings of 293.3 million euros, down 10% compared to the same period of the previous financial year. The group exceeded the target it had set at around 280 million euros. However, the consensus of analysts polled by FactSet expected 299 million euros.
“We achieved a performance slightly above expectations this quarter, with in particular an outperformance of Rainbow Six Siege and the Assassin’s Creed brand”, commented Frédérick Duguet, the chief financial officer, quoted in a press release.
-Vincent Alsuar, Agefi-Dow Jones; 01 41 27 47 39; [email protected] ed: ECH
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July 21, 2022 12:51 ET (16:51 GMT)