EA Beats Expectations With Big Swing To Profitability In Q1

Outperforming Wall Street's expectations, major publisher Electronic Arts posted profits of $96 million in its first fiscal quarter of this year, a massive leap from last year's $234 million loss for the same quarter. That profit boost for the three months that ended June 30 was paired with a 27 percent year-over-year increase in net revenue from $644 million to $815 million, which prompted CFO Eric Brown to say in a statement that "EA is well-positioned for the year ahead and reaffirms its FY11 non-GAAP guidance." EA is claiming to be the number one publisher on numerous platforms by market share for the calendar year so far. The company says its 22 percent high-definition console share, up 4 points year-over-year, is the highest in the business, as is its 33 percent PC game share, driven by retail and strong growth in digital sales. The number of titles EA released in the quarter dropped by nearly half from 11 last year to six this year, but EA said the negative revenue impact of that move were somewhat counteracted by strong growth in digital revenues. "Digital revenue is expected to grow approximately 30 percent year-over-year, to $750 million in the fiscal year," Brown added. EA also says it was the top publisher across Apple's mobile platforms, specifically in this past quarter, with nine of the top ten games during the iPhone 4's June launch period. Big performers for the company included two of its FIFA-licensed soccer games, DICE's Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and the iPad version of Scrabble. Following today's results, EA maintains its existing full-year revenue projections of $3.35 billion to $3.60 billion. While it still expects an overall loss for the year, it has improved its expectations from a loss of $0.85-$1.15 per share to $0.70-$1.00 per share.