Digital sales significantly outstripped traditional brick-and-mortar retail this quarter for leading publisher Electronic Arts, which revealed in today's quarterly earnings call that nearly two-thirds of its net revenue had come from digital sales and services.
Overall GAAP net revenues totaled $695 million in the three-month period ending September 30th, of which digital net revenue constituted $450 million. The figure also represents an improvement for digital over the prior quarter, rising from a reported $324 million at the end of June.
This is generally good news for Electronic Arts, which historically has relied heavily on packaged retail, and which is currently undergoing changes to its infrastructure and
recently appointed a new CEO. The publisher cited strong performance from its mobile offerings
including The Simpsons: Tapped Out,
Plants vs. Zombies 2 and
Real Racing 3 as strong drivers behind its gains in the digital space.
EA also reported that it had narrowed its losses this quarter, from $381 million at the end of June to $273 million as of the end of September. Looking ahead over the next three months, EA expected a modest but appreciable boost to GAAP net revenue, setting guidance at $775 million by the end of December. In terms of the full fiscal year ending in March 2014, EA projected a GAAP net revenue of $3.55 billion, with an expected loss per share of $0.72.
