Ubisoft posts £30m profit FY2012

Ubisoft has reported a ninety percent increase in operating income for fiscal year 2012- well within the targets posted in the previous year’s guidance.

Sales of over €1 billon and decreased R&D costs due to fewer HD games combined to return an operating income of €45 million after stock-based compensation; up from €18 million last year.

CEO Yves Guillemot called the results "better than expected", and credited strong growth in the digital sector.

But the big winners were the core and casual sectors, which brought in €578 and €483 million respectively.

Growth in the digital sector was reported to be over 110 percent to €80m.

Q4 earnings were down year-on-year from €178 to €161 million; a decrease of 9.6% (or -11.2% at constant exchange rates).

Looking forward, Ubisoft plans to expand into the free-to-play market, and expects to be positioned well to take advantage of future consoles.

"For 2012-13 we expect to see an increase of between 25% and 61% in current operating income and positive cash flows from operating activities," said Guillemot.

"Our efforts to constantly enhance the quality of our games, combined with the investments we have made in the fast growing Free-to-Play segment should result in a strong topline and profitability growth for our core gamers titles and for our online segment".