Microsoft Posts Record Xbox Revenue in Fiscal 2024 Q2 Mostly Due to Acquiring Activision Blizzard

As you well know because you’ve seen my handy earnings calendar for this season, Microsoft reported its 2024 second quarter results earlier this week.

Only executives and literally everyone, including when I wrote about this very topic last quarter and predicted the revenue amount, expected the software tech conglomerate to post record gaming sales almost entirely becasue Activision Blizzard numbers are now included since closing the deal in mid-October 2023.

That’s precisely what happened.

Still, as I’ll illustrate shortly, I’d argue massive growth isn’t the whole story. I’m more interested in isolating Xbox’s organic performance, comparing post-acquisition to the sum of both entities before it happened and trying to determine how annual numbers will shake out. In addition, I’ll review the acquisition’s notable hit to profitability for the time being due to its cost and integration.

Essentially: headlines, even mine, never tell the whole story!

There’s also a divide happening right now with Microsoft. Just as the company closed above $3 trillion in market value for the first time, it announced big layoffs in its gaming division. Around 1,900 people across Xbox, Activision Blizzard and Bethesda, or 8% of the gaming workforce, were let go. I know there’s various factors behind this, including macro ones like inflation and interest rates. Plus, stock market valuations are determined by a collective set of investors rather than a company’s management.

Still, the optics and timing are tricky. The fact that job loss after the deal due to redundant roles and function overlap was inevitable doesn’t make it any less painful for the people involved. Especially as the broader company reaches record valuations and reports gaudy numbers.

Moving into those numbers, Xbox revenue totaled over $7 billion in the quarter ending December 2023. That’s up 49%. Within that, Activision Blizzard was responsible for contributing $2 billion. This makes Gaming the third biggest contributor to all of Microsoft’s sales at 11% of the total compared to 9% last year, right now behind only Server and Office.

It’s pretty clear what’s underlying this: Buying a massive third party publisher and integrating it within content and services figures. Even so, there was some organic Xbox growth in Q2. Under 6% to be semi-exact. I was also impressed that hardware was able to deliver solid performance during the holiday season, even if boosted by discounting.

“With our acquisition, we’ve added hundreds of millions of gamers to our ecosystem, as we execute on our ambition to reach more gamers on more platforms,” said Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Satya Nadella. “Great content is key to our growth, and across our portfolio, I’ve never been more excited about our lineup of upcoming games.”

Pretty standard corporate speak from Nadella, and I’d argue Xbox’s line-up this entire generation has been anything but exciting. In fact, management quotes around gaming on the earnings call were generally tame. The team did offer select insights that I’ll cover later, namely on cloud streaming and engagement across platforms including mobile, the latter of which hit record highs after the integration of Activision Blizzard players.

Read on to learn what the numbers truly look like, some estimates from me around a combined historical comparison, my guesses for hardware unit sales and then predictions going forward into 2024.

First thing to note when checking the above slides is Xbox, Bethesda and now Activision Blizzard are all accounted for within Microsoft’s broader More Personal Computing (MPC) segment.

Quarterly gaming revenue rose 49% in the three months ending December, up to an all-time high of $7.11 billion. This was exactly within the firm’s guidance.

What drove it? Well I’ll break that into two categories: Activision Blizzard and pre-acquisition Xbox. Here is where we talk the deal’s impact, which actually cost upwards of $75 billion based on the latest filing. During the second quarter, it contributed $2.1 billion to gaming division sales.

Essentially, Activision Blizzard was responsible for 30% of Microsoft’s second quarter gaming business at the top-line. Still, as I’ll get to in a second, its inclusion put major downward pressure on profit.

Separating that out, the $5 billion “organic” Xbox sales implied a growth rate of 5.7%. Much less than the headline suggests, right. Still, it’s certainly noteworthy for the important holiday time frame, notably while facing what executives called a “tough console market.”

Moving to the latest year, which happens to cover the 2023 calendar months, gaming revenue expanded 17% to rise above $18 billion for the first time ever. This particular figure, mapped out over time in one of the below charts, will only grow over time as more quarters take the acquisition into account.

I’ve also provided a new chart measuring Estimated Combined Gaming Revenue that, full disclosure, pulls in a few different assumptions to form a rough estimate of how annual figures compare when adding in Activision Blizzard’s historical revenue. I’ve summed up the two pre-deal entities going back for a few fiscal years then subtracted $2 billion per year in assumed overlapped sales.

What results is where I think Microsoft gaming sales could be when a year of Activision is considered: almost $22 billion, up a bit from the $21.6 billion a year back. That’s an upward trajectory of 1% as opposed to the 17% I just referenced. Good, yet nowhere near as wild as the headlines indicate.

While Microsoft is the first of the bigger gaming companies to report, I like to gather up a comparison to peers and update throughout the season in my articles. Sony’s latest annual PlayStations sales tracked towards a whopping $28 billion, with notable impact from the yen’s depreciation. Tencent was around $26 billion. This is where the current combined Xbox and Activision Blizzard slots, at $18.13 billion. Nintendo’s latest hit $13 billion. My usual caveat is that Nintendo is operating at higher profitability than at least PlayStation, and likely Xbox as well.

Speaking of profit, Microsoft gave us a bit more than usual this quarter! Partially because it had to illustrate the impact from Activision Blizzard, but I’ll take it. For the MPC group, operating profit jumped up 29% to $4.29 billion. Half of the “gross margin dollars” profit metric, a figure that moved up 34% in Q2, was contributed by Activision Blizzard as it helped up operating expenses at a higher rate of 38%. Focusing strictly on Activision Blizzard, its net impact was $437 million in operating income because of those higher costs. There’s also some accounting nitty gritty that I won’t include, for the sake of brevity.

What does this all mean? Well, record sales were mostly due to Activision Blizzard no longer being a 3rd party partner and becoming first party, however there was single-digit organic Xbox growth during the holiday season. Profit for the segment that includes gaming will take a short-term profit hit while integrating costs and following through with the deal’s financial accounting.

Here’s a quick dive into the two Xbox sub-areas, called Xbox Content & Services (i.e. software and subscriptions) and Xbox Hardware.

For October to December, the vastly larger Content & Services jumped up nearly 70% when measured by revenue. The first figure was above guidance, while the second technically under-performed at least based on what I calculated because Microsoft rarely, if ever, issues formal hardware forecasts.

The reason I say “nearly 70%” is because how Microsoft reported its numbers actually indicates that Content & Services moved up 68% to $5.69 billion, another best ever number, rather than the 61% in its announcement. From what other analysts and I can tell, Microsoft seems to have excluded Activision Blizzard’s eSports sales, for whatever reason.

This leads to my estimate of $16.5 billion for Content & Services over the last 12 month. That itself is above the $15.56 billion for all of Xbox in 2022 Q2. Separately, Hardware generated $3.27 billion in the latest annual period, slightly below the last couple years.

When hearing this numbers and looking at these charts, I’ve assumed all Activision Blizzard revenue is caught in the Content & Services pipeline because it doesn’t have anything to do with console manufacturing.

Underlying the best-ever figures for the software side was another all-time high, this time for engagement. Nadella noted that, now that Activision Blizzard players are included, Microsoft’s gaming division boasts 200 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs) on mobile devices. Prior to this, Xbox’s figure overall was 120 million. Activision had 92 million in September, while Blizzard was 26 million and King totaled 238 million.

Nadella also alluded to a double-digit jump in cloud gaming hours streamed, moving up 44% in the quarter. We don’t have specifics on the actual number of hours played by its active users, only the growth rate. Plus, unfortunately, there’s still no word on Xbox Game Pass subscribers. The last update was 25 million a couple years back, and I estimated recently that it’s likely approaching 30 million though has not eclipsed it. I hope Microsoft offers a new figure this year. Yet I’m not holding my breath.

Xbox’s Hardware segment had a solid holiday, even if the result ended up below my expectations.

Console dollar sales moved up 3% in Q2, to above $1.4 billion. This was spurred on by holiday discounting for the Xbox Series X|S family, and the appeal of something like Bethesda’s Starfield. In terms of number of consoles shipped to market, I believe it slightly increased although those units sold at a lower average selling price.

“In our consumer business, the PC and advertising markets were generally in line with our expectations,” said Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Amy Hood. “PC market volumes continued to stabilize at pre-pandemic levels. The gaming console market was a bit smaller.”

It’s a curious statement. Just because it was challenging doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. Any growth right now for Xbox console revenue, even in the lower single digits, is a positive sign. Echoing my past sentiment, and it’s something gamers need to get accustomed to, is that Xbox’s strategy has officially shifted away from consoles and towards offering services on various devices.

During the last year, Hardware reached $3.27 billion. That’s down 9% from the same time in 2022, though above pre-pandemic figures. Again, this tracks with the general theme.

Since Microsoft doesn’t provide global unit sales like peers do, I have no choice but to guesstimate where they stand. For the holiday quarter alone, I backed into 3.5 million to 4 million shipments for Xbox Series X|S. This would be in-line with last year, albeit below the roughly 4.5 to 5 million that its Xbox One predecessor was doing during its prime.

I put Xbox Series X|S lifetime at 25.5 million or so prior to this latest three month report. Which was below the 26 million of Xbox One. Adding on my estimated holiday shipments for the family, I believe Xbox Series X|S stands currently at 29 million to 29.5 million units lifetime since November 2020. Thus, it remains tracking below Xbox One by upwards of a couple million.

For comparison, Sony’s PlayStation 5 was the best-selling console in key regions during 2023, including the United States as I covered recently. The console reached 50 million units sold to consumers in December 2023, and the shipment figure will be even higher when Sony reports in a couple weeks.

Overall at Microsoft during Q2, revenue jumped 18% to $62 billion. Operating profit rose 33% to $27 billion. Microsoft Cloud grew 24% to 33.7 billion. Executives provided some color around how the Activision Blizzard deal affected the full firm’s financials.

“At a company level, Activision Blizzard contributed approximately 4 points to revenue growth, was a 2 point drag on adjusted operating income growth, and a negative 5 cent impact to earnings per share. This impact includes $1.1 billion from purchase accounting adjustments, integration, and transaction-related costs such as severance-related charges related to last week’s announcement.”

That’s referencing last week’s Xbox group layoff announcement, which came after a year of more than ten thousand people losing their jobs at the broader company.

To wrap up the latest quarter, it’s important to look behind the absurd 49% growth and big figures due to integrating Activision Blizzard. There has to be consideration for what numbers look like when combining the two historically, plus the notable downside profit effect for the time being. Not to mention the painful layoffs that happened mostly because of the deal taking place.

In terms of dynamics and future of the Xbox division, these don’t necessarily change with the latest new acquisition. The numbers are bigger, and the portfolio certainly has more brands especially on the mobile side with the unsung King division, while various challenges remain especially on the hardware front plus with industry-wide service stagnation and general costs rising.

I’m also lamenting the lack of details into Activision Blizzard’s underlying financials. We’ll never see them ever again. Pour one out, fellow business nerds and data transparency advocates.

Here I’ll take the chance to look ahead to the third quarter, and make some predictions on the immediate future of Xbox.

Management expects Xbox division sales growth “in the low 40s,” so between 40% and 44%. Out of that, management signaled 45 points would be due to Activision Blizzard. Yes, this means that Microsoft is saying its non-Activision Blizzard Xbox sales will likely decline in this current quarter.

Assuming say 42% growth, that puts Xbox sales at $5.12 billion in the three months ending March 2024. Which, you guessed it, would be a Q3 record. I believe this will be met, though on the lower end.

For Xbox Content & Services, Hood said to anticipate growth “in the low to mid-50s” i.e. around 50% to 57%. Most, if not all of that, will be Activision Blizzard causing a net impact of 50 points or 50%.

Let’s say it gets to 54%, that would elevate Content & Services to $4.77 billion in Q3. Again, I expect that to be achieved, and I think there’s a good chance it hits the upper end.

Finally, management actually provided Hardware guidance! Well, somewhat. They think it will decline. That will certainly be the case if the other numbers hold. As in, console sales could be down by as much as 30%. Based on how they presented numbers this time, I’m guessing around a 5% to 10% decline for console in Q2 which would equate to around $450 million to $480 million.

The early year release slate for Xbox is a tad light, so I’m thinking evergreen titles and the Call of Duty effect being first party will drive the business to hitting these forecasts. In terms of new games, Sega’s Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth hit a million units yesterday. Warner Bros’ Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League formally launches today, and I’m skeptical on its commercial upside, just like I am for Ubisoft’s Skull & Bones this month. There’s titles like Tekken 8 from Bandai Namco, which I’m quite upbeat on, and Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma 2 in March that should attract a cult following.

Will these be the biggest software contributors of the quarter? Nope. It’s Palworld, the surprise console exclusive that’s garnering a lot of attention from consumers and pundits alike. It’s much more than the “Pokémon with Guns” moniker, and has been a near unprecedented sales success. So far, Pocket Pair’s latest reached more than 19 million players, 7 million of those on Xbox alone. It’s the largest third party launch in Game Pass history, beating out 2022’s High on Life, and instantly shot to the top of the service’s most-played chart. I’m on record saying it will end the year as one of the platform’s biggest titles. Frankly, it’s absurd and I love it.

That ends the first massive recap of the latest season. Follow me on social for coverage in between articles, and check back soon for more here at the site. Be well!

Note: Comparisons are year-over-year unless otherwise noted.

Sources: Circana, Company Investor Relations Websites, Pocket Pair, Sega.

-Dom

Earnings Calendar Jul & Aug 2017: Gaming, Media & Tech Companies

 

Welcome back friends! Time to get excited for numbers, and charts, and graphs. Lots of ’em.

 

This post is a little later than usual as the “quarterly earnings season” is already well underway, but there’s still plenty of companies within tech and gaming that have yet to announce how their business have been faring during the past few months.

 

Per usual, above you’ll see a full calendar of public companies and the dates on which earnings results are posted. Then below is a link to a Google Doc containing this same information for easy access to investor relations websites for your viewing pleasure.

 

Working Casual Earnings Calendar Jul & Aug 2017: Gaming, Media & Tech Companies

 

Some companies on my radar this quarter are as follows:

 

Amazon $AMZN: The massive online retailer based in the States announced its whopping $13.7 billion acquisition of grocer Whole Foods $WFM in June, so it may provide some sort of update on the status of this deal when it reports this Thursday, July 27th. The deal itself is a key development in the retail space as it cross over between digital and brick-and-mortar sellers, however that’s part of the reason it’s under continued scrutiny from the U.S. government and no formal approval has been given thus far.

 

 

Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. $TTWO: The owner of studios Rockstar and 2K Games has seen growth lately based on the ongoing success of Grand Theft Auto V, in particular its online component. However, GTAV released all the way back in 2013, plus Take-Two doesn’t have any triple-AAA game releases this year now that Rockstar’s widely-anticipated Western Red Dead Redemption 2 was delayed. In an interview recently with GamesIndustry Biz, CEO Strauss Zelnick acknowledged the thin release schedule and commented that ideally the company would release more big titles on a regular basis. I don’t think we’ll hear much in terms of RDR2 status other than it’s still in the development phase, but the company needs to reassure investors that its line-up can support big gaps between Rockstar’s heavy-hitting games.

 

 

Activision Blizzard $ATVI: Activision Blizzard reports on Thursday, August 3rd and is in arguably the best position this year of all the major worldwide video game publishers. Blizzard’s multiplayer hero shooter Overwatch continues its widespread appeal more than a year after release, surpassing 30 million registered players and transitioning to a viable eSports franchise with the announcement of the Overwatch League this month. The company’s Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, released in late June, is vastly exceeding expectations as it was the best-selling game in the world during its release month. Not to mention upcoming releases, where Activision boasts two games with huge upside that I believe will end up in the Top 5, if not Top 3, games by sales this year: (the Game of the Year contender and what might be the best game this generation if it was up to me, hah) Destiny 2, out September 6th, and Call of Duty: WWII, releasing on November 3rd. Oh, and it also now has fully integrated King Digital into its structure so it has significant mobile exposure too.

 

 

Vivendi SA $VIV: Lastly, as I’ve noted in the past, whenever French media firm Vivendi reports, there’s the potential it could formally announce a bid to purchase Ubisoft Entertainment SA $UBI, which has already reported stellar results itself for its last fiscal year. As of Vivendi’s latest annual report, it now owns 26.8% of Ubisoft’s outstanding shares, meaning that my prediction the acquisition will not happen anytime soon less and less likely by the quarter.

 

 

Thanks as always for checking out the calendar and my thoughts on some of the companies on the list. Any announcements you’re looking forward to in particular? Will the publisher of your most-anticipated game this year

 

 

-Dom

 

Sources: Company Investor Relations Websites/Press Releases, MarketWatch, GamesIndustry Biz, Business Wire.

2016 Year-In-Review: Top 3 Impactful Deals of the Year

During this Year-In-Review post, I wanted to acknowledge some of the merger and acquisition activity impacting the sectors I cover.

 

The following are three of the most “impactful” deals of 2016, which will lead the involved companies into growth areas for 2017 and beyond. Two of them revolve around mobile gaming companies and the last involves a major wireless firm with a media conglomerate in one of the largest mergers announced last year.

 

In chronological order, here are three of the deals that impacted gaming, media and technology markets in 2016:

 

 

February: Activision Blizzard completes its purchase of King Digital Entertainment PLC for $5.9 billion, allowing the major game and software publisher exposure to the ever-growing mobile market via the Candy Crush series in particular.

 

 

June: Chinese tech giant Tencent announced it is set to purchase Supercell for $8.6 billion, further strengthening its mobile dominance and expanding to markets outside of Asia with the Clash of Clans franchise among others.

 

 

October: AT&T agrees to purchase Time Warner Inc for a monumental $85.4 billion, establishing the wireless giant as a gargantuan media conglomerate with not only ownership of physical and digital distribution channels but content creators themselves such as CNN, HBO and Warner Bros.

 

Sources: King Digital Entertainment PLC, Supercell, Time Warner Inc, Wall Street Journal

 

-Dom

2016 Year-In-Review: Top 5 Influential Gaming Companies of the Year

Back again with another 2016 Year-In-Review post!

This time, let’s keep it a bit free form. I wanted to post about some of the companies that have influenced my gaming habits this year, or those that have had significant impact on the industry as a whole.

So, in alphabetical order, here are five of the most influential companies in gaming for 2016 and a quick note about each. Which companies, developers or publishers influenced your habits this year?

 

 

Activision Blizzard, Inc.

Annual Revenue: $4.6 billion

Major public publisher produced some of the year’s most recognizable and top-selling games, including Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, World of Warcraft: Legion expansion and newcomer Overwatch.

 

 

Bethesda Softworks (Subsidiary of ZeniMax Media)

Annual Revenue: $89.2 million (Parent Company)

Independent, private publisher responsible for various notable titles in 2016, in particular: id Software’s DOOM and Arkane Studios’ Dishonored 2.

 

 

Electronic Arts

Annual Revenue: $4.4 billion

Along with its usual annual sports titles, which it continues to support with “Ultimate Team” fantasy-type modes, EA produced a pair of notable FPS games: the resurgent title in the Battlefield series, Battlefield 1, and critical darling Titanfall 2.

 

 

Sony Corp

Annual Revenue: $72.1 billion

Sony manufactures what continues to be the highest-selling console this generation, the PlayStation 4, which saw an upgraded “Pro” version in 2016 plus the firm launched its foray into virtual reality with the PlayStation VR headset.

 

 

The Pokémon Company & Niantic, Inc.

Annual Revenue: NA

TPC and Niantic were responsible for the year’s biggest gaming phenomenon in Pokémon GO, not to mention the former published two new entries in the Pokemon handheld franchise late in 2016 in Pokémon Sun and Moon.

 

 

-Dom

Introducing: Casual Friday, August 5th, 2016

Casual Friday

 

Isn’t Friday just the best?

 

In honor of the greatest day of the week, I am happy to introduce a new weekly article series dubbed Casual Friday (of course)! During Casual Friday, I’ll make a few notes about items or stats or really just anything around the industries I cover that we might have missed during the busy week. I often post such tidbits on Twitter, but this is the best place to view them as it will be in a round-up fashion.

 

With that said, the highlights this week are as follows:

 

Titanfall Art

 

Electronic Arts (EA) CFO Blake Jorgensen said on the company’s earnings call this week that the original Titanfall game, released in 2014 on Xbox platforms, sold 7 million units. This sales figure was previously (incorrectly) reported as 10 million based on a tweet by Vince Zampella, studio head of developer Respawn Entertainment. Many like me had been waiting for a clarification on this number, especially leading into this fall when the sequel Titanfall 2 is set to release but this time on both Xbox and PlayStation platforms. Jorgensen says the firm expects 9-10 million units sold for the sequel.

 

Game of Thrones Poster

 

Time Warner (TWX) reported that Season 6 of HBO’s Game of Thrones, which debuted back in April, averaged 25 million viewers per episode. This is a record number for the show. For perspective, the company also said that Game 7 of the NBA Western Conference Finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Oklahoma City Thunder, which aired on their TNT network, was the most-viewed NBA telecast of all time on cable. It had 16 million viewers.

 

Overwatch Artwork

 

Activision Blizzard (ATVI) revealed what most industry followers and regular gamers already assumed: Blizzard’s new hero shooter Overwatch is a huge commercial success. Since its release only three months ago, the game has amassed 15 million players, which is the earliest that any Blizzard game has hit this milestone. These players have devoted around 500 million hours to the game, and the company estimates the game has raked in a half billion dollars so far.

 

Take Two Logo

 

In an interview with GameIndustry.biz, Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO) CEO Strauss Zelnick said that the company’s guidance for 2017 does not include any contribution from Nintendo (7978)’s upcoming hardware, code-name “NX.” This implies that the company is not developing any launch titles for NX, as the console’s release date of March 2017 corresponds to the end of TTWO’s fiscal year. No mention of NX games in the pipeline beyond next March, either.

 

Total War Warhammer Art

 

Sega Sammy Holdings (6460) announced its Total War strategy game series has sold more than 20 million copies over its 16-year history. The latest title is this year’s Total War: Warhammer. And yes, it should have been called Total Warhammer, I agree. Golden opportunity, missed.

 

Pokemon Go SurveyMonkey Intelligence

 

And finally, it wouldn’t be an article in the summer of 2016 if I didn’t mention Pokemon GO! According to SurveyMonkey Intelligence, 63% of Pokemon GO players are women. Niantic & The Pokemon Company’s super-duper-megahit is most popular among folks ages 18-29, which comprise 46% of the game’s overall player base. Oh, and a Japanese Olympian racked up around $5,000 in data charges playing the game in Brazil. Now that’s addictive!

 

Any tidbits or topics that caught your eye this week? Leave a comment if so, and as a reminder you can now subscribe to email alerts by signing up in the sidebar to the right.

 

-Dom

Bottom Line: What is Activision Blizzard’s Actual Business Mix After KING Acquisition?

KING-NYSE

 

Now that Activision Blizzard, Inc. (ATVI) today has reported its first quarterly earnings since its acquisition of King Digital Entertainment PLC (KING) in February, how does its business mix actually look now and does this indicate potential upside going forward?

I predicted a few weeks back that based on KING’s financials, the combined firm’s Mobile segment would now comprise approximately a third of revenue, operating income and distribution channels (latter of which is the means by which customers purchase its products). This would mean that after Activision Publishing, Inc., the firm’s interactive entertainment and games segment that produces titles like Call of Duty and Skylanders, its new KING unit would be the next-largest contributor to overall business. Note that KING is the maker of mobile games like Candy Crush and Farm Heroes. I wasn’t exactly right about this, yet, but keep reading below to see details.

Additionally, I noted that the post-acquisition geographical breakdown would be interesting to see as the two companies presented these classifications differently. After looking at operating units, we will peek at what locales are driving the firm’s new business structure as well.

The results are in for this past quarter, and revenue plus income figures across its units are as follows:

 

ATVI Segmented Revenue & Income 2016Q1

 

For context, I have tabled these actual numbers against my predictions and earlier years below. Note that the earlier figures are fiscal, and they account for KING’s earlier financials inserted alongside ATVI’s original businesses, so focus on the percentages instead of the totals as a comparison:

 

ATVI Actual Revenue & Income 2016Q1 Table

 

You’ll see that my estimates were a bit high, at least for now, as actual revenue contribution by KING is 23% while it accounts for almost 27% of income. I still think that over the next three quarters, this could increase to a third of ATVI’s overall business as mobile grows and Blizzard potentially stagnates. Unless Blizzard’s online FPS Overwatch (releasing 5/24) performs extremely well, but that’s a discussion for a different day.

Now I will present the same exact values as charts showing the percent of each in the context of the overall business. Again, everything prior to 2016Q1 is an illustration using KING’s financials inserted, as was done above:

 

ATVI Actual Revenue 2016Q1 Chart

ATVI Actual Income 2016Q1 Chart

 

The next shot is an overview of Distribution Channels from the earnings report. Quick reminder that this is how consumers purchase content and services provided by ATVI:

 

ATVI Distribution Channels 2016Q1

 

Below are these actual distribution numbers compared with  earlier fiscal numbers. Basically, these are as expected though I believe Mobile is now included in Digital which accounts for the bump:

 

ATVI Actual Distribution Channels 2016Q1 Table

One more perspective which I did not have in my earlier article is revenue by platform. I think it’s especially relevant now after KING’s contribution. You’ll see console is still the dominant platform at 53% of sales:

ATVI Revenue by Platform 2016Q1

 

As for geographical profile, a quick snapshot shows that North America is still the main contributor followed by Europe:

 

ATVI Geographical Segments 2016Q1

 

My last comparison across years, this time for percentages from different geographies:

 

ATVI Actual Geographical Segments 2016Q1 Chart

 

What these figures tell me overall is that despite KING/Mobile still being a smaller contributor than I initially anticipated, I still think it’s a key strategy going forward as its upside is more than Blizzard’s. Digital is already the main means by which consumers purchase the publisher’s games and services, so its diversification into Mobile as an additional revenue source and channel is a natural progression of its business model as a broad software publisher. This is especially relevant given my expected future decline of Blizzard subscriptions and traditional physical retail sales of ATVI’s games and software. And based on its stock price movement since the acquisition’s February close, where its shares are up more than 10%, investors seem mostly positive on this move as well.

 

ATVI Google Finance

 

In my opinion, the $5.9 billion bet on an expansion into mobile via KING is a crucial one despite its high cost. At the current rate of earnings (around $270 million per year, given this quarter’s performance), the breakeven on its KING investment is something like 22 years. However, this is conservatively assuming mobile does not grow; I think it will, which will move up that breakeven point. It will still be well worth it in the long-run. as the company diversifies its revenue streams and continues to finance more traditional projects such as console games (for instance new Call of Duty, Destiny titles) and full-price or subscription-based Blizzard entries (Overwatch, potentially new World of Warcraft content) to keep its core fanbase intact.

(Note that I do not know about any new Call of Duty, Destiny, Overwatch or World of Warcraft content other than what’s already been publicly announced. I’m just stating that new projects can be financed through sales of mobile games now that KING is assimilated into the ATVI structure.)

Do you agree that a foray into mobile was essential for ATVI, or should it have built organically from within and focused on core business such as console and subscription-based gaming platforms?

Sources: Activision Blizzard, Inc., Google Finance

-Dom

Bottom Line: How Will King Digital Acquisition Impact Activision Blizzard’s Business Mix?

Activision-Blizzard-logoKing Logo (PRNewsFoto/King Digital Entertainment plc)

 

Bottom Line: Activision Blizzard, Inc. (ATVI) derived most of its overall sales and income from its Activition publishing arm prior to its recent acquisition of King Digital Entertainment PLC (KING) in February 2016, while its dominant distribution segment was digital channels and its operations were mainly in North America. Now that the deal is complete, what will be the impact on the business mix of ATVI from both an operational and geographical perspective?

Before the deal, ATVI had two main operating businesses, both well-known as industry leaders in their specific areas, and an additional catch-all category:

Activision Publishing, Inc.: Publishing interactive entertainment software products and downloadable content. Major brands include Call of Duty, Guitar Hero, Destiny and Skylanders.

Blizzard Entertainment, Inc.: Publishing real-time strategy games, role-playing games and online subscription-based games in the MMORPG category. Major brands include World of Warcraft, Diablo, Starcraft and Hearthstone.

Other: Activision Blizzard Media Networks, Activision Blizzard Studios, Activision Blizzard Distribution & Corporate Items.

ATVI Segmented Revenue

 

You’ll see the Activision Publishing arm has been responsible for the most revenue and income for the past three years. This past year it comprised 58% of revenue ($2.7 billion) and 59% of income ($868 million), while Blizzard Entertainment constitutes 34% ($1.57 billion) and 38% ($561 million) respectively. A decline in revenue and income for Blizzard Entertainment was mostly due to bigger releases in 2014 and lower subscriber base for World of Warcraft this past year.

Taking into account KING’s latest statements, my forward-looking estimates for revenue and income including an additional business unit named “King Digital”:

King Digital Entertainment PLC: Developing and publishing mobile games and interactive entertainment, including free-to-play titles and social applications. Major brands include Candy Crush, Farm Heroes, Pet Rescue and Bubble Witch.

KING Revenue

Estimated Revenue Income Post Acquisition 2

 

Using KING’s latest annual figures and aligning them with the other segments within ATVI overall, you’ll see KING could contribute around 33% of sales ($2.26 billion) and 34% of income ($768 million). This indicates that it would move into the second position in terms of contribution, right after Activision Publishing, meaning that ATVI’s mobile business will eclipse its publishing of Blizzard titles and game types. I expect this to fully continue in the future with the increase in popularity of mobile and casual gaming plus the decline in World of Warcraft subscriptions, unless Blizzard releases a new game within one or more of its established franchises.

Digging further, let’s see revenue by distribution channel which is a breakdown of how consumers are purchasing ATVI’s content. The channels before the deal are:

Retail Channels: Physical distribution of games via brick-and-morter and online retail outlets.

Digital Online Channels: Digitally-distributed games and subscriptions, licensing royalties, value-added services, downloadable content (DLC) and related microtransactions.

Other: Same items as above.

 ATVI Distribution Channels

And again, my estimates for after using recent KING reports using a grouping called “Mobile Channels.”

Mobile Channels: Games, services and subscriptions distributed via mobile phones, tablets and other devices.

Estimated Distribution Channels Post Acquisition

 

The trend here first is that last year, Digital Online Channels overtook Retail Channels as the leading distribution type, indicating a more widespread trend toward consumers opting to buy their software digitally. Digital Online Channels contributed 57% of revenue ($2.63 billion). If we insert KING’s revenue under the new Mobile Channels classification, then I estimate it will be the second overall distribution source at 33% of revenue ($2.26 billion). This would be a large shift away from Retail for ATVI, a bet that consumers want to consume their games digitally whether it’s on console, computers or mobile devices.

Lastly, I’ll show a quick glance at which regions are driving ATVI’s business. This is trickier to display as the companies report their geographical breakdowns differently. Before the deal, ATVI reported broad regions:

ATVI Geographic Revenue

While KING classifies according to individual countries:

KING Geographic Revenue

Which leads to a rough estimate, and definitely not a perfect one, because I have to follow KING’s reporting that lumps all countries outside of these three into Rest of World:

Estimated Geographic Revenue Post Acquisition 2

 

Still, it does the job to show that North America will continue to be the driving force behind business operations as half the firm’s sales over the past few years are from this locale.

The highlight overall is that ATVI’s $5.9 billion bet in acquiring KING is a significant shift in the company’s business mix, as its mobile business will overtake Blizzard Entertainment from a games revenue perspective and also will contribute more to revenue than the firm’s retail offerings. Geographic mix for now looks to be unchanged, but that also depends on expansion into new markets and what constitutes the Rest of World classification. By these estimates, it will take around 3 years for ATVI to recoup the almost $6 billion sales price in revenue and even sooner if mobile grows at a faster rate than the firm’s more traditional businesses.

Sources: Activision Blizzard, Inc., King Digital Entertainment PLC, United States Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC)

-Dom