Activision Blizzard sees Record Finances Thanks to Call of Duty

Activision Blizzard has reported their financial results for the full-year and Q4 periods. Both show that Call of Duty has had very good results.

In 2020 alone, Call of Duty net bookings almost doubled. This is largely thanks to Call of Duty Mobile, as well as Call of Duty: Warzone, which launched in March last year. While premium releases such as Black Ops Cold War saw sales rise by 40 percent year-on-year, the free-to-play evolution of the franchise has been the game-changer.

Full-year net revenues for the publisher are up by 25 percent year-on-year at $8.09 billion. Net bookings hit $8.42 billion, a rise of 44 percent, and net profits were up by 46 percent at $2.2 billion.

Looking at Q4 2020 alone, revenues hit $2.41 billion, up 22 percent, and net bookings hit $3.05 billion, up 13 percent. Net profits, however, saw a small decline to $508 million, a drop of 3 percent.

In their results, the company explained that they are already seeing the impact of their growth initiatives in the Call of Duty, Candy Crush, and World of Warcraft franchises. Simultaneously, they’re working on new IPs which will be released by 2022, and the company thinks they will boost their financials even further.

Activision was the strongest division thanks to the outstanding performance of Call of Duty. Net revenues for the full-year are up 77 percent at $3.9 billion. Operating income for the same period is up a massive 120 percent at $1.87 billion. This puts Acitivison’s profits almost as high as Blizzard’s.

Blizzard’s full-year net revenues were up by 8 percent at $1.91 billion. The biggest contributor of note was World of Warcraft, which saw net bookings rise by 40 percent year-on-year.

The King segment saw a rise of just under 7 percent for revenues at $2.16 billion.

Activision’s player base hasn’t increased all that much given the rise in net bookings for Call of Duty. It seems as though monthly active users are being sustained rather than dropping, which is a good sign for the franchise’s future.

For Activision Blizzard as a whole, monthly active users are down by 3 percent year-on-year for Q4 at 397 million. However, this is up compared to the previous quarter. Blizzard reported that they saw monthly active users fall by 9 percent year-on-year, and 3 percent compared to the last quarter. King’s figures reflected this, indicating that it’s a company-wide trend, not specific to any one segment.