US video game publisher Activision Blizzard capitalized on its "Call of Duty" franchise to achieve nearly $ 2.3 billion in first quarter sales, well beyond its expectations and those of the market .
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Call of Duty
The revenues derived from the game "Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War", launched in November on the old and new generation consoles, largely contributed to a 72% increase over one year in the turnover of the branch. Activision of the group, according to a statement released Tuesday. The arrival on mobiles of this first-person shooter, in the world of the Second World War or more modern conflicts, has
"transformed the franchise"
, specifies the group. This strategy has
“more than tripled the number of monthly monetizable users over the past two years and enabled Activision to reach a record 150 million monthly monetizable users”
at the start of the year.
The "Call of Duty: Warzone" version, which works according to the principles of "battle royale" - the "survival" mode popularized in particular by the game Fortnite - also breaks records.
Subscriptions, transactions in games and derivatives bring the bulk of revenues: they represented $ 1.6 billion in the first quarter, all titles combined, against 675 million for sales of games.
619 million net profit
The group generated 619 million in net profit, against 505 million a year ago.
Its share jumped 5.4% during electronic trading after the close of the stock market.
"Our outperformance allows us to revise upwards our forecasts for the year,"
said boss Bobby Kotick.
Activision Blizzard now expects 8.37 billion turnover in 2021, against the 8.2 billion previously announced. The “Candy Crush” application, a great popular mobile hit from Studio King, has not been unworthy, with 22% growth over one year during the first three months of the year.
