Activision Blizzard Q1: more Overwatch players participated in Retribution than prior events, digital in-game sales up significantly

Activision Blizzard had a great Q1 2018, with digital and in-game sales hitting record profit. More Overwatch players participated in Retribution than any prior event, and Battle for Azeroth pre-orders are ahead of plan.

Activision Blizzard has released its Q1 financials for the period ending March 31, 2018.

Net bookings for the quarter, which is the net amount of products and services sold digitally or sold-in physically, were $1.38 billion. This figure is up from $1.20 billion year-over-year.

The quarter also saw record in-game net bookings of approximately $1 billion. This figure represents in-game purchases and DLC packs. For this sector, Call of Duty purchases grew year-over-year, with Call of Duty: WW2’s first quarter second only to that of Call of Duty: Black Ops 3.

Sales from digital channels as a whole were $1.20 billion, up from $1.07 billion during Q1 2017.

Activision reported 51 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs) for the quarter, with Call of Duty user engagement seeing year-over-year growth in player engagement.

Blizzard games had 38 million MAUs with World of Warcraft over-performing versus the prior expansion at this point in time, with higher engagement and community participation with in-game purchases.

Preorders for the upcoming expansion, Battle for Azeroth, are ahead of plan. Hearthstone continues to see strong engagement.

Overwatch saw a higher player participation rate with Retribution than any prior event.

Combined, Activision Blizzard had 374 million MAUs during Q1 2018.

For the first quarter ended March 31, 2018, Activision Blizzard’s net revenues were a Q1 record at $1.97 billion, compared with $1.73 billion year-over-year. Revenues from digital channels hit a quarterly record at $1.46 billion.

A call to investors will go live shortly, so we’ll update this post as more information comes out of it.

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