EA announced yesterday that a massive 76 per cent of the company's revenues come digital products and services such as Origin.
While consumer spend on boxed console products has declined – which accounts in part for the surge in digital spending as a proportion of EA's revenues – the milestone is significant for several reasons.
GameSpot reports that Apple was EA's "biggest retail partner measured by sales" for the quarter according to COO Peter Moore. In total, EA made $90 million from mobile games during the period.
During EA's earnings call for the first quarter of financial year 2014 last night the company announced a loss of 40 cent per share on revenues of $495 million. Analysts had predicted the company would report a loss of 60 cent a share and while the company is still losing money shares rose by three per cent in after hours trading yesterday.
Interim CEO Larry Probst said that due to cutbacks at EA the company's expenses this year will be flat or only slightly above those for financial year 2013. Given that this is a console transition year this is a significant achievement and seems to suggest next-gen development will not be substantially more expensive than current-gen.
EA labels president Frank Gibeau added that the company will make it easy for players to carry their data from third generation consoles (PS3 and Xbox 360) to fourth generation platforms (PS4 and Xbox One).
In a statement Probst commented, "EA had a solid quarter driven by continued digital growth and disciplined cost management. We are also executing on a clear set of goals for leadership on mobile, PC, current and next-generation consoles."
The company's better than expected performance is significant in light of the SimCity online debacle and the failure of Fuse which launched at an abysmal 37th place in the UK charts.
Source: VentureBeat.
