Activision Blizzard Makes More Money From Mobile Than Consoles or PC - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 August 2023 / 10,156 Views
Activision Blizzard has released its earnings report for the second quarter of 2023, which ended June 30, 2023.
Revenue for the quarter increased 34 percent year-on-year to $2.21 billion, while net income more than doubled to $587 million.
The gaming publisher now earns more from mobile than consoles or PC. Mobile grossed $943 million (43%) in revenue for the quarter, compared to $594 million (27%) for PC and $556 million (25%) for consoles. Other accounted for $114 million (5%) of the total revenue.
Americas accounted for the majority of revenue for Activision Blizzard having generated $1,278 million (58%) of the total revenue. EMEA accounted for $660 million (30%) of the total revenue and Asia Pacific $269 million (12%).
"This quarter, our talented teams delivered strong performance for our players and shareholders," said
"Most importantly, we continue to set new standards of excellence for workplace culture and provide joy and connection to hundreds of millions of players around the world. While we continue to have concerns about the economy and growing industry competition, we remain focused on the long-term opportunities ahead and completing our merger with Microsoft."
Microsoft and Activision Blizzard also announced today an extension of Microsoft's acquisition of the gaming publisher with a new deadline of October 18 to complete the transaction.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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Damn!!! And Warzone Mobile is set to release later this year.
And this is the actual reason microsoft wanted to buy ABL
With their ambitions for a mobile storefront to compete with the likes of Google and Apple, having major titles like CoD Mobile, Warzone Mobile, Candy Crush, (ugh) Diablo Immortal, and the upcoming Warcraft Arclight Rumble, that's a really good way to kick their way in.
On top of other mobile releases they have like Elder Scrolls Blades, Fallout Shelter, and even an upcoming Age of Empires Mobile and Forza Mobile.
We all know mobile games makes more money than console and PC games, been like that for a while which is why many companies are trying to get in on the action. MS were slow to adapt, so bought instead. Never doubted their intentions when after ABK's mobile side.
Third-party publishers were the main ones that picked up on mobile. Platform holders in general were slow to adapt to mobile because their main goal was selling consoles. Nintendo has seen mixed results and don't release mobile games regularly and even shutdown quite a few of them, and Sony has yet to release a title in their PlayStation Mobile division.
This isn't about MS being slow to adapt. This is about MS reaching outside of console gaming to also compete against the likes of Apple/Google since they now have ambitions for a mobile storefront. MS was definitely slow getting into the mobile OS market though and got kicked out, so a mobile storefront would be their next best bet.
I hope they are able to launch a mobile store front, it's a 2 (monopoly) restrictive market right now, the only way any company can get in is by being a mega corporation to try and muscle in, whether this is MS or maybe Epic. Just a matter of how they try and get in when the default options are App Store and Google Store on the respective OS/devices.
Do we know for sure that their goal is to set up a mobile storefront that competes with Google and Apple? If that is really their goal, then my guess would be that they are going to try to muscle their way in with litigation, using the courts to force Google and Apple to stop having their own stores as the default on their operating systems.
However, that seems unlikely to be there approach. I'm thinking they're just trying to get into the software game, and operate through the existing stores. Maybe they can negotiate a slightly better deal for themselves, if they have a whole bunch of top performing titles.
It is indeed their plan.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/19/23411972/microsoft-xbox-mobile-store-games
For real, I hope they can work it out. I always think they could use the monopolisation of Apple and Google's store's against them by launching their own games market place in the store for free as an app. But Epic tried that and lost (sadly), god knows how.
However, there is something to note from all that, a judge said “The point is not that ... Apple provides bad services. It does not,” she writes. “The point is that a third-party app store could put pressure on Apple to innovate by providing features that Apple has neglected.”
Much to the very reason why monopolies are not liked, control of money and stagnation. MS being able to launch their own store front on Apple or Google but with better ideas, better relations with developers etc (more than just in game currency, as in the games itself) might allow for entry. Heck if they can get PS and Nintendo licenced games to their store?! I might actually download a mobile game that isn't LoR.
Consoles and pc is what put them in the map though so never forget it
Plus Console and PC still account for 52 % compared to 43% for mobile.
A couple of things spring to mind one being that since it's quarterly figures the numbers may be skewed by what was release during or just before the quarter another is it isn't all bad for traditional gaming since Console and PC together make up 52% of revenue compared to 43% for mobile still it goes to show what a good decision acquiring King was and shows that before the ABK purchase the focus was on contracting mobile studios and publishers to produce mobile versions of mainly first party IP now while this has seen success especially for Nintendo, overall the ABK buyout highlights the missed opportunity that was brought about by the reluctance of the console makers to buy big mobile players when they had the chance and instead left them to be acquired by big 3rd party publishers and while ABK rights one missed opportunity and bodes well for MS in the mobile space it puts Sony well and truly in the backseat and while things can change at the moment there doesn't seem to be any signs of them buying a big mobile franchise, instead they are now trying to grow the mobile side by way of their mobile aims being about growing the mobile side by investing in and developing mobile focused internal studios something that so far hasn't seen a lot of success.
587 million net income for the quarter, that mean it would take 117.5 quarters to pay for the 69 billion acquisition price or 29.4 years. Of course the net income should go up and shrink that timeline, but if COD ever did get topped by another game and see it's revenue shrink it could be trouble.
It doesn't work like that. MS acquires the assets, not just the cash flow. Theoretically, they could sell the assets and get their money back whenever they want.
That's not how it works. MS will make more money from this purchase of assets versus cash sitting in the bank collecting interest.
have you ever heard the saying it takes money to make money?
Closer to 117.25 quarters since the actual purchase price is closer to 68.7 billion. ;) But Microsoft is getting game IPs, real estate, furniture and fixtures, and much more. So it's not just a matter of how quickly Microsoft can earn all its money back, while also owning all the assets of ABK. Plus ABK's profit has grown over time, and may continue to do so.
ABL earnings >>>> Nintendo earnings. WOW
Phones are ubiquitous.
