ALL THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT THE BUSINESS OF PC GAMES

News

Ubisoft says Asia is driving its PC success

Ubisoft says Asia is driving its PC success

French publishing giant Ubisoft says that its PC business is "experiencing strong momentum" largely thanks to Asia.

That's according to CEO Yves Guillemot, who said in a statement alongside the company's H1 18/19 financial results that both its mobile and PC segments were core factors in the firm's recently success.

Digital was the largest factor in Ubisoft's results for the first half of this fiscal year due to the French firm's back catalogue as well as its live operations and new games. Guillemot also called out Assassin's Creed Odyssey as being successful.

The company reported sales of $869.7m (€767m) while net bookings rose 60 per cent to $846m (€746.1m). Digital net bookings shot up 51.5 per cent to $588.7m (€519.2m), forming 69.6 per cent of total net bookings.

Meanwhile, revenue from back catologue games was up 48.8 per cent to $640m (E564.9m). Though this was up year-on-year, this vertical made up a smaller proportion of total net bookings versus the same period in the 17/18 fiscal year; just 75.7 per cent down from 81.4 per cent.

"Thanks to the depth and strength of our back catalog and Live operations, our second quarter 2018-19 performance was above target. This momentum drove up our net bookings and financial results for the first half of the fiscal year," CEO and co-founder Yves Guillemot said.

"The release of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey was successful. Community reception has been extremely favourable and player engagement rose once again, confirming the franchise’s entry among the very best RPGs.

"Led by an increasingly direct relationship with our player communities as well as very high-quality titles, our first-half 2018-19 performance confirms the potential of Ubisoft’s many short- and medium-term growth drivers. The steady rise in player engagement is feeding our digital development and the quality of our games is enabling us to achieve top-rate performance.

"Our mobile segment is growing significantly and our PC segment is experiencing strong momentum, especially across the whole of Asia. Lastly, we are ramping up our presence in esports, artificial intelligence and streaming, all of which offer long term opportunities for the video game industry. In light of all of these factors we are confident in our ability to deliver robust growth and to sustainably increase our profitability over the long term."

Come find out about the future of the PC games market, including the impact of emerging markets such as China, at PC Connects London 2019. Tickets are available to buy right here. One ticket gives you access to not just this event, but also Pocket Gamer Connects and Blockchain Gamer Connects. 


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.