Ubisoft reports full year earnings
"The performances delivered by The Division and Far Cry Primal exceeded our expectations"
Today Ubisoft reported its full year earnings for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2016. It revealed sales of €1,394 million ( $1.587 billion), and a 12 per cent rise in profitability.
For the year digital sales were €446.7 million, up 16.7 per cent, and accounted for 32 per cent of total sales.
Sales in Q4 of 2015-16 stood at €624.9 million ($711 million), a rise of 267.7 per cent on the same period year.
"Gross profit increased to 78.1 per cent as a percentage of sales (versus 77 per cent in 2014-15) but contracted to €1,088.9 million from €1,126.7 million in absolute value terms."
CEO Yves Guillemot offered the following statement:
"We ended fiscal 2015-16 on a very positive note, having effectively executed our plan: the performances delivered by The Division and Far Cry Primal exceeded our expectations, we continued our major come-back in the multiplayer segment and we saw a significant increase in player engagement levels for our games. The Division currently has 9.5 million registered users, and active players are playing the game an average of three hours1 per day. These successes resulted in our digital segment outperforming our targets for the fiscal year and positively impacted our profitability."
"Since our initial public offering 20 years ago, we have built one of the world's leading players in the entertainment industry and have created significant value for our shareholders, with a 14-fold increase in the Company's share price. Over the past few years, we have considerably strengthened our portfolio of owned brands. For example, we have tripled the audience for Far Cry, doubled it for Rainbow Six, and launched The Division and Watch Dogs which were the first and third-largest releases ever for a new video game brand. In parallel, we have increased the sales weighting of our digital segment to 32%, primarily through organic growth. Thanks to these repeated successes, we have demonstrated our capacity to effectively implement and execute our strategic plan. As a result, we are now entering a new phase of expansion and strong value creation for our shareholders, with 2018-19 operating margin targeted to reach 20% and free cash flow expected to come in at around €300 million."