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Ubisoft has announced its Q1 sales report for fiscal year 2017-18. Sales were up 45.2 per cent year-on-year between April and June 30th, amounting to €202.1m. That’s just over €30m more than expectations.
Of that €202.1m, 94.3 per cent came from back catalogue sales, which equated to €190.4m. A lot of those sales were digital, too, with 80.4 per cent (€162.4m)of Ubisoft’s total Q1 sales coming from digital revenue. That’s an increase of 55 per cent year-on-year.
With such a strong performance under its belt, Ubisoft’s now forecasting Q2 sales of €190m, which will be up 34 per cent year-on-year. During this period, Ubisoft will be releasing Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle for the Nintendo Switch, the third season of For Honor, and the Hong Kong expansion for Rainbow Six Siege.
Ubisoft is also standing by its original full year targets as well, which currently stand at €1.7bn in sales and approximately €2.7bn in non-IFRS operating income.
Co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemotstated: Fuelled by the digital segment – which saw a sharp increase in player recurring investment – as well as a strong showing from our back catalogue, our sales for the first quarter of 2017-18 came in well ahead of our targets, up 45%, despite the fact that there were no major new releases during the period.
"At this year’s E3, our teams presented an outstanding line-up and I would like to thank them for their amazing work which has been recognised by the entire industry. Our games have generated enormous enthusiasm among the player community, which supports our expectations for the full year.
"Thanks to our increasing ability to engage players over the long term, combined with our unique creative strengths, we are even more confident of achieving our targets for 2017-18 and 2018-19. We expect both of these factors to continue being key drivers of value creation in the coming years."
