Activision Announces Better-Than-Expected Q3 Financial Results; Raises Full-Year Outlook

Today Activision announced its financial results for the third quarter of the calendar year 2020, related to the period between July 1 and September 30.

The publisher released a press release including summary of its results, which you can see below.

Incidentally, those results are substantially better than previously predicted. This led Activision to increase its outlook for the full year.

The press release also included the traditional comment by Activision Blizzard Chief Executive Officer Bobby Kotick.

“Our teams continue to execute our growth plans with excellence during incredibly challenging circumstances.

We are on a path to deliver sustained longterm growth across our fully-owned franchises. With confidence in our ability to continue to execute, we are raising our outlook for the year and remain enthusiastic for our growth prospects next year.”

We also get a list of highlights underlining the performance of the publisher’s games and financial situation.

Activision

• Activision had 111 million MAUs in the third quarter.
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Warzone saw more than three times as many MAUs as the prior title in the year-ago quarter. Console MAUs grew strongly and PC MAUs grew over ten-fold year-over-year. Across PC and console combined, hours played were approximately seven times higher year-over-year.
• We again saw substantial year-over-year growth in premium game sales as Warzone players chose to upgrade to the full Call of Duty experience. Modern Warfare first-year premium sales are the highest in
• Call of Duty’s history, with two-thirds of units sold digitally.
• Call of Duty console and PC in-game net bookings were four times the year-ago level.
• Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War will release on November 13 into the largest and most engaged community in franchise history at the time of launch, and will support cross-platform play across PC, current generation, and next-generation consoles. Anticipation for the release is high, with far more players
• engaged in the game’s public testing than for the year-ago title.
• Call of Duty Mobile sustained the impressive levels of reach and engagement from the prior quarter, as the title crossed its one year anniversary. The title was the highest-grossing new game in US app stores since its launch last October.
• and is now in final large-scale testing in China, where over 50 million players have pre-registered to date.
• The inaugural season of the Call of Duty LeagueTM concluded with the September Champs Weekend breaking viewership records for a Call of Duty esports event.

Blizzard

• Blizzard had 30 million MAUsD in the third quarter.
• World of Warcraft MAUsD were stable year-over-year. Anticipation continues to build for Shadowlands, the next expansion for modern World of Warcraft, ahead of its November 23 launch. World of Warcraft franchise engagement is at its highest level for this stage ahead of an expansion in a decade, with
• Shadowlands presales well ahead of any prior expansion.
• Hours played in Hearthstone grew year-over-year in the third quarter, with the Battlegrounds mode seeing sustained strong engagement since its release last November. This November will see the broad release of Duels, a new player-versus-player mode, alongside a new in-game progression system and the latest expansion, Madness at the Darkmoon Faire.
• Overwatch continues to have a large and dedicated community, with 10 million MAUsD in the quarter, over four years since launch.
• Millions of Overwatch fans have engaged through the 2020 season of the Overwatch LeagueTM, with the October Grand Finals being the most-watched event in the league’s history.

King

• King had 249 million MAUsD in the third quarter, with Candy CrushTM MAUsD growing year-over-year.
• King in-game net bookingsC grew year-over-year and Candy Crush was once again the top grossing franchise in the U.S. app stores1
• The Farm Heroes and Bubble Witch franchises grew net bookingsB year-over-year as the teams delivered a higher frequency of in-game content.
• King again delivered robust double-digit year-over-year growth in advertising net bookingsB, with strength across both direct brand advertisers and partner networks.

If you’d like to compare today’s results with historical data, you can check out the results for the previous quarter, which were published in August.