News

Strong Madden NFL Mobile growth sees EA Mobile's sales up 3% to $128 million

But non-GAAP sales up 43%

Strong Madden NFL Mobile growth sees EA Mobile's sales up 3% to $128 million

EA (NASDAQ: EA) has announced its Q3 FY16 financials, for the 3 months ending 31 December 2015.

GAAP revenue was $1.1 billion, down 5% year-on-year.

Non-GAAP revenue (the difference relates to how companies book the sale of digital goods not yet used) was up 26% to $1.8 billion.

The company posted a $45 million GAAP net loss, compared to income of $142 million 12 months ago.

However, considering the non-GAAP situation, EA generated income of $596 million, up 54 %.

EA ended the quarter with cash and equivalents worth $2.3 billlion.

Indeed, considering net operating cash flow, EA had its best quarter ever, generating $889 million, or $207 million more than 12 months ago.

A galaxy of cash

Looking at EA Mobile, it accounted for 9% of EA's overall GAAP sales - $128 million.

That's up 3% quarter-on-quarter, and up 5% year-on-year.

Non-GAAP sales were $162 million, up 43% quarter-on-quarter or 17% year-on-year.

The company's big launch during quarter was Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes.

Released just before Star Wars: The Force Awakes film, it was a top 5 downloaded iOS game in over 130 countries, and has been a top 20 top grossing game in key territories.

However, because it was launched mid-December it didn't impact Q3 sales substantial so we won't see its real financial impact on EA Mobile's performance (especially GAAP performance) until the next quarter.

Evolving playbook

EA also pointed to strong growth from Madden NFL Mobile, which has seen its monthly active playerbase up almost 50% over the past 12 months.

EA stated: "Madden NFL Mobile continues to illustrate the opportunity for sports games on mobile devices.

"Building on the success of Madden NFL Mobile, we are excited to bring more compelling EA SPORTS experiences to our players on mobile devices."

[source: EA]

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.