EA Loses $322m in October-December 2010 on Revenue of $1.053b - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 01 February 2011 / 7,160 Views
Publishing monolith EA has reported its results for the quarter ending December 2010. On a GAAP basis, the company generated revenues of $1.053b and lost $322m. The revenue figure on a non-GAAP basis was $1.41b, in line with forecasts, and on a non-GAAP basis EA profited $196m, also in line with forecasts. As GAAP is a method of accounting, the GAAP loss includes items such as restructuring (a $154m difference alone) which are not included in non-GAAP figures but data is provided within EA's financial tables to reconcile the difference between the two sets of figures.
For all of 2010 (Jan-Dec), EA had revenues of $3.478b with losses of $397m. Compared to 2009, both revenues and losses are down. During 2009, EA had revenues of $3.535b and losses of $749m. Using non-GAAP figures, EA profited $173m in 2010 on revenues of $3.683b, compared to a profit of $2m on $3.918b in revenue during 2009. All figures in the preceeding two paragraphs can be seen on pages one and two of this document.
For January to March 2011, EA expects revenues to total $0.975b to $1.075b on a GAAP basis. Earnings per share are expected to reach 38 - 51 cents for the quarter. Total revenue for the year ending March 2011 is expected to reach $3.473b to $3.573b. EA expects losses for the year on a GAAP basis to be 77 to 90 cents per share. EA says it has 331 million shares of stock - so the loss could be as high as $298m or $0.90 * 331m (which is lower than the $397m lost in Jan-Dec 2010).
EA highlights for the quarter and all of 2010 are listed as the following:
- EA was the top publisher on PS3 and X360 in the West for the year. It was the top publisher on Iphone and Ipad in the West during October - December.
- Shipments of the latest Need for Speed and Medal of Honor games topped 5m units in the final quarter of 2010.
- Madden, Fifa, and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 also topped 5m units in 2010.
- Dead Space 2 is outselling Dead Space two to one so far.
- Scrabble was the number one item (beating all books) on Kindle during the last week of December.
- Digital revenue for EA grew to $195m in Oct-Dec 2010 from $133m in Oct-Dec 2009.
EA also noted that Need for Speed offset the poor performance of EA Sports Active 2 across the three consoles during the most recent quarter.
The company has also been providing alot of geographic, demographic, and system based revenue figures (see pages 7-14).
Notably EA reports that:
- For the December 2010 quarter, EA earned over half of its revenue in North America, and 45% of its revenue in Europe. The remaining 5% came from Asia. In the 12 months to Dec 2010, 52% of EA revenue came from North America, and 42% came from Europe.
- EA revenue in the North American market fell 24% from the Dec 2009 to Dec 2010 quarter, while also dropping 2% in Europe, and 21% in Asia.
- EA revenue for Wii, X360, and PS2 fell from the Dec 2009 quarter to the Dec 2010 quarter. Wii dropped from $196m to $134m, X360 dropped from $348m to $285m, and PS2 dropped from $44m to $20m. Console revenue dropped from $824m to $717m from the Dec 2009 quarter to the Dec 2010 quarter, however PS3 revenue increased from $236m to $282m.
- DS revenue fell from $63m to $49m, and PSP revenue fell from $30m to $22m from the Dec 2009 to Dec 2010 quarter.
- EA's DS and Wii figures in the September 2010 quarter were $8m and and $25m - so the growth to $49m and $130m is quite impressive. PS3 and X360, while bigger overall, grew far less in the Dec 2010 quarter from the Sept 2010 quarter.
- Over the entirety of 2010, EA revenues were $995m on X360, $915m on PS3, $676m on PC, $266m on Wii, $215m on mobile devices, $144m on 'other', $95m on PSP, $90m on DS, and $82m on PS2.
- For comparison, during the December 2010 quarter, revenues were $285m on X360, $282m on PS3, $155m on PC, $134m on Wii, $59m on mobile devices, $51m on 'other', $49m on DS, $22m on PSP, and $20m on PS2.
- At $20 per game sold for Wii, and $30 per game sold for PS3 / X360, EA sold 6.7m Wii games in Oct-Dec 2010, 9.4m PS3 games, and 9.5m X360 games. Moreover, the DS and PSP figures work out to 2.9m DS games and 1.2m PSP games. The PS2 figure is about 1.1m games.
- With PC and Mobile games performing well for EA, systems from Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo only accounted for 75% of EA's revenue in Oct-Dec 2010 ($788m / $1053m).
- EA also noted that catalogue game sales (older titles still selling) were 30% of December quarter revenues (non-GAAP), up from 16% in the September quarter, and also well above the 21% average of January - June 2010.
- Despite selling fewer games on HD systems in the December 2010 quarter than in the December 2009 quarter ($567m in revenue rather than $583m on the X360 decline according to EA's own figures) EA says packaged X360 and PS3 software grew 23% in the West over the previous December quarter.
- EA estimates digital growth has consistently been 27% in the West for each quarter of the last year.
- Non HD-software and non-digital software fell 24% in the West in the December quarter according to EA. This is presumably on DS (down over 10%), PSP and PS2 mostly, as Wii software sales were flat over the previous December quarter by Nintendo's shipment figures.
- Digital revenues in the West grew to $721m in 2010 from $524m in 2009 according to EA. Console digital software grew to $175m from $86m, PC digital software grew from $231m to $317m, Mobile software grew from $207m to $228m.
More earnings fun is coming this week - notably Activision and Sony. Keep checking VGC for the information!
Contact VGChartz at jmazel@vgchartz.com
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EA and NBA ELITE are trash.
I'll never support that mess called EA.
Yea, I'll buy your games. when their $29 for MOH and Mafia II (which I payed!)
That's what you get for letting people pay for online. Want to do things your way. Why is it that I cannot purchase an add on through PSN or XBL? Why do I have to go through your store? No other company does that. Why do you have to have your own servers? Why can't you just use PSN or XBL? Thats what you get for being Greedy!
Excellent results, shares jumped 14% today.
EA was profitable if you do not take into account all the money they spent on Restructuring their company.
EA is now saying they only need 500,000 subscriptions for Star Wars: The Old Republic to be profitable....This according to an article at GamaSutra.
Here is what I think, if The Old Republic fails to gain traction, then EA is going to be in a whole heap of trouble with investors jumping ship and dumping EA stock. EA knows how critical The Old Republic is and I suspect they may be delaying it in hopes their quarterlies before it is released show profits.
The culture of endless money that has taken hold must be replaced by a culture of restraint.
i still dont understand why they are still losing money. every game they release is profitable to some degree, so why are they still losing money. are they just to big for current business model they are using? maybe you guys have a better idea about this.
sucks for EA
See, you don't HAVE to follow Nintendo's strategy of making money, that's optional people. lol.
But seriously, making that much moolah and still taking a loss is incredible. Their games are doing well though, so carry on I guess!
FUCK... is this company ever gonna die? they have been losing money for 10 years and they are still somehow alive
@morenoingrato They spend alot of money on restructing there business which is an huge multinational hence the reason of 322 million lost, but they made 173m off software so they are doing good.
@yum123
they would have alot of money in reserve and also they can get loans because they are very profitable.
well need for speed could have made more if gt5 never came out and ended making 5.5 million in a couple weeks
what I cant understand is how they manage to stay in business theve been losing nearly half a billion dollars for a few years now how much do they have in the reserve tank and how can they possibly lose money when they sell a rediculous amount of games every year fifa 10 mill a year madden 5 mil sims 5 need for sdpeed 5 battlefeild 5 etc they must be run by clowns
It just depends what you include. If you include the restructuring costs and other things, yeah EA lost money, $322m. If you don't, they profited.
I'm a noob... so in the end... did they profit or loose?
