Activision Blizzard's total revenue in 2021 broke records, and warcraft mobile games launched during the year?
On February 3, Activision Blizzard announced its fiscal fourth and full-year fiscal 2021 financial results. In 2021, Activision Blizzard's net income was $8.803 billion (about 56 billion yuan), compared with $8.086 billion in 2020, an increase of 8.87%, once again setting a record revenue record.
At the same time, the company's fourth-quarter net income was $2.163 billion (about 13.8 billion yuan), higher than the previous forecast of $2.020 billion, an increase of 7% from the third quarter, but down 10% from $2.413 billion in the same period last year.
Activision Blizzard's net predetermined value for the fourth quarter was US$2.49 billion (about 15.8 billion yuan), down 18% from US$3.05 billion in the same period last year, and its net predetermined value for 2021 was US$8.35 billion (about 53.1 billion yuan), down 0.8% from US$8.42 billion in the previous year. In addition, Activision Blizzard's total number of active users in Q4 was 371 million.
It is worth mentioning that the annual net sales of in-game microtransactions reached US$5.1 billion (about 32.4 billion yuan), accounting for 61% of Activision Blizzard's total revenue. This mainly includes game DLC, World of Warcraft subscriptions, and in-game accessories or loot boxes, and is up 5.2% from $4.85 billion last year.
In addition, the earnings report also mentioned the deal with Microsoft, saying that it has now been approved by Activision Blizzard and Microsoft's board of directors and is expected to be completed in Microsoft's fiscal year ending June 30, 2023.
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick also said: "Looking ahead, with Microsoft's scale and resources, we will better develop existing IP, launch new potential IP, and unlock the rich game library we have accumulated for more than 40 years." Our 370 million players and great workplaces around the world remain our focus. For investors, our recently announced deal is the culmination of three decades of exceptional returns for shareholders. ”
The earnings report also mentioned that expanding the developer base remains a strategic focus for Activision Blizzard, and the company will also continue to work to ensure that employees have an inclusive and safe work environment based on previously announced initiatives.
In 2022, Activision expects to launch a new Call of Duty IP game created by Infinity Ward Studios at a later date, Blizzard is also launching a large number of new content for major IP plans, and King hopes to consolidate its momentum by further innovating its operational strategy. Specifically:
The first is Activision, where Call of Duty's fourth-quarter net revenue on consoles and PCs declined year-over-year, reflecting call of Duty: Vanguard's sales being lower than the same IP products a year ago, as well as declining player engagement with Call of Duty: Warzone. Still, gamer spend on consoles and PCs in the fourth quarter was well above pre-Call of Duty: Warzone level.
However, thanks to the continued development of the Chinese market, call of duty mobile game net revenue growth for the whole year has grown strongly, and global players spend more than $1 billion on the game in 2021. This will be followed by additional development resources around the world, and the Call of Duty universe will continue to be built as planned.
On the other hand, new content for the Warcraft series, Diablo and Overwatch, as well as new IPs, are under constant development. Blizzard plans to provide a large number of new content for the Warcraft series including World of Warcraft and Hearthstone in 2022, and for the first time bring the much-anticipated Warcraft mobile game to players.
The earnings report also revealed that diablo 2: Remake was released in September 2021 to the end of the year, and its sales far exceeded that of any other Activision Blizzard remake game in the same period. On the mobile side, Diablo: Immortal has just finished testing.
In addition, thanks to the 20% year-on-year growth of King's largest IP, Candy Crush, King's net in-game revenue increased by 14% year-on-year, setting a new record in the fourth quarter. At the same time, Q4 player playtime has increased year-on-year again, with the number of paying users increasing by a double-digit percentage compared to the same period last year. King's advertising business grew rapidly and hit a new high in the fourth quarter, with advertising revenue growing by more than 60% year-on-year in 2021.
"Legend of Dawn" has a stable income, and Bandai Namco has invested 15 billion yuan to build an IP meta-universe
At the same time, Bandai Namco also raised its overall fiscal year target, raising its sales target from 795 billion yen to 810 billion yen, an increase of 15 billion yen, its operating profit target from 90 billion yen to 96 billion yen, and its net profit attributable to the parent company from 58 billion yen to 67 billion yen.
In the games-focused digital business, sales at the end of the quarter were 242.321 billion yen (approximately US$2.1 billion and 13.4 billion yuan), down 4.6% year-on-year, while segment profit was 37.633 billion yen (US$320 million and 2 billion yuan), down 20.5% year-on-year. Although the new legendary series "DawnFalls" has sold well and the sales of old works have been steadily increasing in the past, the overall momentum is still lower than the same period in the previous fiscal year due to the company's increased investment in new large-scale works and the advance of initial expenses such as development funds.
In terms of toy manuals, sales were 28.957 billion yen (US$250 million and about 1.6 billion yuan), an increase of 27.3% from the same period of the previous year, and the profit of the division was 50.765 billion yen (about US$440 million, 2.8 billion yuan), an increase of 40.2% year-on-year.
In terms of video music, the Mobile Suit Gundam series, Love Live! The revenue from the series, IP imaging of Idol Master, sales of music packaging software, and IP-related licensing contributed a lot of profits. Coupled with the increase in the number of new forms of Live held year-on-year, sales of video music were 35.292 billion yen (310 million US dollars, about 2 billion yuan), an increase of 67.2% year-on-year, and the profit of the division was 3.159 billion yen (about 0.3 billion US dollars, 200 million yuan), an increase of 449.6% compared with the previous year.
In terms of IP, Dragon Ball tops the list in sales worldwide, followed by Mobile Suit Gundam, One Piece, and Kamen Rider. But in Japan, "Mobile Suit Gundam" is the first, "Kamen Rider" is close behind, and "Dragon Ball" is only third.
It is worth mentioning that according to foreign media VGC, Bandai Namco recently announced at the shareholders' meeting that it will invest 15 billion yen (about 130 million US dollars and 830 million yuan) to create its own IP meta universe. It is reported that the company announced its medium-term plan from April 2022 to March 2025, and introduced a new logo and preliminary plans for related strategies.
The plan will achieve three goals: one is to connect with fans through IP; the other is to strengthen the value of IP; and the third is to expand the program globally to increase its revenue in overseas Japanese markets. An important part of this is to create an "IP metacosm".
Bandai Namco said that they plan to launch metaverse content for each of its IP in the future, and the metacosm of each IP will become part of the "ALL BANDAI NAMCO Concept" universe.
The company explains, "We wanted to use virtual spaces to allow users to enjoy the joy of being full on IP, as well as to leverage Bandai Namco's unique strengths to blend physical products with digital and place elements into a new framework." Although there is no mention of specific IP at present, it also reiterates at the end that "realizing the meta-universe concept" will be one of the main strategies of Bandai Namco in the next three years.
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