9.5m people have played Ubisoft’s The Division

Ubisoft’s new online shooter The Division has 9.5m registered users.

That’s according to the publisher’s latest financial report. Note that this does not mean that 9.5m people have bought The Division, but rather that number of gamers has played it (one copy can be played across multiple profiles).

CEO and co-founder Yves Guillemot notes that players are spending an average of three hours on the game each day.

Guillemot also claims that Ubisoft has strengthened a number of its brands over the last few years – exec says that the audience for Far Cry has tripled, while that of Rainbow Six has doubled. Both The Division and Far Cry Primal ‘exceeded expectations’.

Meanwhile, 32 per cent of the firm’s total sales are now digital.

"We ended fiscal 2015-16 on a very positive note, having effectively executed our plan: the performances delivered by The Division and Far Cry Primal exceeded our expectations, we continued our major come-back in the multiplayer segment and we saw a significant increase in player engagement levels for our games,” Guillemot said.

The Division currently has 9.5 million registered users, and active players are playing the game an average of three hours[1] per day. These successes resulted in our digital segment outperforming our targets for the fiscal year and positively impacted our profitability."

He continued: ”Since our initial public offering 20 years ago, we have built one of the world’s leading players in the entertainment industry and have created significant value for our shareholders, with a 14-fold increase in the Company’s share price. Over the past few years, we have considerably strengthened our portfolio of owned brands. For example, we have tripled the audience for Far Cry, doubled it for RainbowSix, and launched The Division and Watch Dogs which were the first and third-largest releases ever for a new video game brand. In parallel, we have increased the sales weighting of our digital segment to 32%, primarily through organic growth.

Thanks to these repeated successes, we have demonstrated our capacity to effectively implement and execute our strategic plan. As a result, we are now entering a new phase of expansion and strong value creation for our shareholders, with 2018-19 operating margin targeted to reach 20% and free cash flow expected to come in at around €300million."