Losses grow but EA sales beat expectations

Publisher EA has published higher than anticipated sales numbers for its financial Q2 ending September 30th 2012.

In total sales hit $1.03bn for the period – a 17 per cent year-on-year increase.

Losses for the period also increased, however, hitting $340m. That’s a $139m year-on-year increase.

The big successes of the period were FIFA 12, which has now shipped 8m units worldwide, and Madden 12 (3m shipped). Facebook phenomenon The Sims Social is another jewel in the crown with around 8m active daily users, helping the company hit a business-wide MAU milestone of 101m.

And while EA insists that its packaged games operations remain its most lucrative, the growing success of digital is clear to see. Digital sales reached $216m – a 30 per cent year-on-year increase.

Smartphone revenue, in particular, rocketed by 87 per cent.