Assassin's Creed publisher has bumper quarter

Mike Bantick
Friday, 25 January 2008 07:53

Your IT - Entertainment

Despite recent dives on global share markets, the video game publishing racket still seems to be a good one.  Assassin’s Creed publishers Ubisoft have released their buoyant numbers for the quarter ending December 31 2007.

Having the top selling PS3 game and second largest for the Xbox 360 (behind Halo 3) with Assassin’s Creed, went along way to bolstering the financials of publisher Ubisoft in 2007.

Ubisoft also had success in the more casual sector of gaming, including Fashion Designer, Babyz and Animal Doctor for the Imagine series; Horsez, Hamsterz and Catz for the Petz  series; and MyWordCoach for the MyCoach series.

Games for new-generation consoles represented 84 percent of the Group’s sales in the first nine months of 2007-08, versus 55 percent for the equivalent period of 2006-07.

Yves Guillemot, Chief Executive Officer of Ubisoft, stated "The vast majority of our games reaped the benefits of particularly strong market momentum over the Christmas period. Two new long term multi-million franchises were created, Assassin's Creed and Imagine, generating sell-in sales of 5 and 2.5 million units respectively. They will join our existing portfolio of 12 franchises. As a result, Ubisoft moved up from fourth to third place in the overall ranking of independent publishers in 2007 – a year that saw the video game industry enter new dimension with previously unheard-of visibility. This revolution stems from the greater accessibility of Nintendo's consoles as well as from the superb cinema-like visual experience provided by Sony and Microsoft consoles. We expect this situation to significantly drive up market performance once again in 2008, with overall market growth representing at least 10%. Against this backdrop, Ubisoft will continue to leverage its strong brands and design capacities with a view to outperforming the market."

Sales for the third quarter of 2007-08 came to €450 million, up 44.4%, or 50.1% at constant exchange rates, compared with the €311 million recorded for the same period of 2006-07. Sales for the first nine months of fiscal 2007-08 totaled €711 million versus €483 million in the corresponding period of 2006-07, representing an increase of 47.2%, or 52.1% at constant exchange rates

These figures propelled the French based publisher into the number 2 independent publisher position in Europe (8.7 percent market share) and number 3 in the U.S (6.1 percent market share).

The release went on to identify targets for the upcoming fiscal quarter and beyond:  “The Group expects sales for the fourth quarter of 2007-08 to total around €165 million, representing a 16% contraction compared with the same period of 2006-07”

This contraction despite the next quarter’s line up of Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2, Assassin’s Creed for PC and DS along with the TV show ‘Lost’ coming to the gaming screen.
 
For the full 2007-08 and 2008-09 fiscal years ahead, Ubisoft has raised its sights: In light of the Group’s third-quarter performance and initial positive trends for the fourth quarter of the year, Ubisoft has raised its performance targets for full-year 2007-08. The 2007-08 sales target is now approximately €875 million, compared with the forecast of €840 million announced on December 13, 2007, and the Group expects current operating income before stock options to represent at least 13% of sales, versus the previous estimate of at least 12%.

At the same time, in order to take into account the postponed release date for Haze, Ubisoft has raised its 2008-09 sales target to approximately €1 billion, compared with the previously-announced forecast of around €975 million. The Group is maintaining its target for current operating income before stock options to represent at least 11% of sales.

The 2008-09 line-up will include notably the following key titles:
* 7 franchises, including Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell, Brothers in Arms, Far Cry, Prince of Persia and Anno,
* 5 new brands, including Tom Clancy's EndWar, Haze, the Shaun White snowboard game and a Tom Clancy air combat game,
* New games in the Petz, Imagine and MyCoach series as well as a new line of casual games.