Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) Announces Its Results For Q1 2018 And FY18

Gaming industry giant Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:EA) announced its financial results for Q1 of 2018 as well as the financial results of its FY18 on Tuesday.

The company joins the list of many companies that have recently publicized their results for the first quarter of 2018 but the announcement was of extra importance for EA because the end of Q1 also marked the end of its 2018 fiscal year. Andrew Wilson, the company’s CEO stated that the 2018 fiscal year was characterized by continued transformation and strong growth. This was the result of EA’s efforts of expanding its major titles such as The Sims, Battlefield, and FIFA to more players in more geographies and platforms.

“In the year ahead, we will expand the world of play with amazing new experiences and new IP, more competition, and industry-leading subscription programs. There has never been a more exciting time to be engaging and entertaining global communities,” revealed Wilson.

The financial report revealed that EA’s earnings for Q1, 2017 came in at $607 million which is equivalent to $1.95 per share. This marks a significant improvement compared Q1, 2017 earnings which were reported at $566 million which translated to $1.81 per share. The company’s revenue shot up from $1.53 billion a year ago to $1.58 billion this year.

The company revealed that its FY18 digital net bookings (products and services sold digitally and physically) was $3.538 billion, which marked a 17 percent year-over-year improvement and 68 percent of the total net bookings. The current generation consoles boosted growth for the EA SPORTS franchise by roughly 90 million players. Games like Madden NFL 18 and FIFA 18 had almost 18 engaged players which represented a 75 percent increase year-over-year. The Sims community had a player engagement of more than 80 million players on mobile and PC while the Battlefield community had an average of 54 million players engaged on PC and current generation consoles for the fiscal year.

As far as EA’s other financial activities are concerned, it spent $148 million to buy back 1.2 million shares in Q1 of 2018 which is the fourth quarter of the company’s fiscal year. However, it repurchased a total of 5.3 million shares for $601 million during the within FY18. Electronic Arts also announced a new two-year stock repurchase program valued at $2.4 billion. It also revealed that the net cash provided by its operating activities for Q1 of 2018 was $615 million and a total of $1.692 billion for the entire fiscal year 2018.

The performance of the company during Q1 of 2018 highlighted a strong and this led to an uptick in EA’s shares as a result of the boosted investor confidence. EA CEO Blake Jorgensen stated that FY18 marked another record year for the company. He also added that the positive performance that EA has been enjoying is based on the changes that it has been making to boost its relationship with gamers. Blake also pointed out that players want fresh content and more depth from their favorite games.

EA closed the latest trading session on Wednesday at $131.01.