Earning Report: Activision Blizzard Banks On Mobile Gaming And Esports, As Their Q3 Earnings Reveals

Earning Report: Activision Blizzard Banks On Mobile Gaming And Esports, As Their Q3 Earnings Reveals
Credit: Call of Duty via YouTube

Activision Blizzard is about to release its earnings after the closing bell this Thursday, November 7. The game company has its share peak of over 19%, slightly outperforming the consumer market’s 18.6% ROI. The company also had some sought-after launches this year. Like for example, Call of Duty: Mobile made its entry last month similar to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

Another significant progress Activision noticed is their emerging world of esports, which has significantly attracted investors as the new sports. Analysts say this new sport has high tendencies of becoming a multi-billion –industry shortly.

Esports Effect on Audience
The investment giant, Goldman Sachs, estimates that esports is likely to grow into a multibillion-dollar in three years from now, which has caused other investors hopeful about Activision Blizzard’s Overwatch League. Since the league launched in January 2018, the company has sold about 20 teams and also had business deals with Amazon’s Twitch and Disney’s abandoned ESPN.

Statistically, the esports audience is expected to reach a staggering 645 million by 2022, making the esport industry a tremendous growth opportunity. Activision reported above one-digit growth in attendance during the second season of Overwatch League based on a minute-audience, a metric that the average audience for an event at a specific time during the broadcast.

Calculating the average minute for season two of the Overwatch Grand Finals was double the initial year, and the figures count at 1.12 million who showed up for the championship match. Also, Call of Duty World league got an increase in viewership as well, clearly put, a 50% yearly increase for both events in the second quarter earlier this year.

Esports and COD gaming experience
Although Activision had some interesting user data to fuel their leagues for more streaming, so it turns to a legitimate revenue-generating platform, but this is not soon as investors may think.

For Activision Blizzard to capitalize on the viewership, they would have to improve the viewing experiences for their audiences and also get viewers to watch the best in the world compete, now that’s what will finally drive revenue in the new market.

Talking of its Call of Duty: Mobile is another industry Activision has tried to establish it’s firm on. Mobile and PC games, but especially Mobile, captured the growth lately, which resulted in console games’ revenue. The report showed how the new mobile Call of Duty hit over 35 million downloads for the first three days upon launch. Activision also announced Call of Duty surpassing more than $600 million in revenue in 3 days, which makes it the most successful launch for any COD title this present console generation.

So far, here’s what their Q3 earnings look like: ‘our Q3 consensus net sales estimates to fall 29.16% to $1.17 billion while earnings nosedive 51.92% to $0.25 per share.’ Activision Blizzard is transitioning to where it would gain back footing in the gaming industry after constant revenue decline. So, they are trying to tap into the growing market (esports) while focusing on the Call of Duty franchise to spark up the diminishing interest gamers had when starting.

For information sake, Activision Blizzard’s earnings have rallied higher, earning the stock rank Zacks Rank.

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