CD Projekt starts 2020 off with a record Q1 as The Witcher series continues its reign

The first three months of the CD Projekt Group’s 2020 year are starting out on a high note, financially speaking. At the close of the first quarter, the group covering game dev CD Projekt Red, game storefront GOG, and a handful of other businesses reported PLN 92 million (~$22.9 million) in net profit, up from last year’s PLN 20.5 million (~$5.1 million) net profit during the same chunk of time.

“Both with regard to sales and net profit this was the best first quarter in the Group’s history," explains CFO Piotr Nielubowicz.

“The largest contribution to these results again came from strong sales of The Witcher 3, including its Nintendo Switch edition released last October. We take pride in this achievement – particularly given that The Witcher 3 has just celebrated its fifth anniversary. Our results were also bolstered by Gwent and Thronebreaker. In the first quarter Gwent was released on Android devices, while Thronebreaker debuted on Nintendo Switch.”

The CD Projekt Group reported PLN 192.972 million (~$48 million) in revenue for the quarter ending March 31, 2020, up quite a bit from the PLN 80.9 million (~$20.1 million) reported during the same quarter last year. The bulk of that increase looks to have come straight from game sales; CD Projekt’s “revenues from sales of products” category alone reported a 169.7 percent increase year over year, coming in at PLN 137.2 million (~$34.1 million) for Q1 2020.

The two other categories that make up those overall sales revenues—sales of services and sales of goods & materials—also saw year over year increases. Services rose to PLN 319,000 (~$79,309) from last year’s PLN 48,000 (~$11.933).

Goods and materials--the category that captures revenue from the physical components of physical game collectors editions, merchandise sold through CDPR’s online store, and externally developed games sold through GOG.com—saw an 85 percent increase year-over-year, coming in at PLN 55.433 million (~$13.8 million) for the quarter.

Breaking things down differently, the game development studio CD Projekt Red was responsible for PLN 147.8 million (~$36.7 million) of those overall sales revenue, while GOG.com chipped in for 49 million (~$12.2 million).

“The reported increase in Q1 revenues, both at CD Projekt Red and GOG.com, was likely associated with the growing popularity of videogames in light of movement restrictions and stay-at-home orders introduced in many countries,” notes Nielubowicz. “We’re very happy that in this difficult period our videogames provided joy and entertainment to millions of people around the world.”