Perfect World Shows Improved Financials After Recent Game Launches

Major Chinese MMO maker Perfect World announced this week that some recent releases helped increase revenues for the first quarter of 2011 and drove profit margins higher than the the same period in 2010. Total revenues for the quarter ending March 31 were RMB721.0 million ($110.1 million), up 15 percent from the first quarter of 2010, driving profits for the period up 110 percent from last year to RMB263.7 million ($40.3 million). Th revenue growth surpassed the high end of the company's internal expectations, chairman and CEO Michael Chi said, and represents a financial turnaround from a difficult 2010 that focused lots of resources on development of long-term projects. Those investments are now paying off, Chi said, with recent releases such as Forsaken World and Empire of the Immortals now contributing meaningfully to revenues along with the company's catalog of established franchises. Chi explained the profit boost, adding, "At the same time, we also experienced lower sales and marketing expenses as we did not have as many new launches as we did in the previous quarter. All of these factors contributed to our strong bottom-line growth in the first quarter." Perfect World also stressed its success in expanding its brands outside of China, including licensing agreements to bring certain titles to North and Latin America, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Macao, Vietnam and Russia just in the last quarter. Overseas sales now account for nearly 10 percent of the company's revenue, according to the quarterly results. Looking forward, Perfect World anticipates further growth driven by upcoming releases including Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber and Swordsman Online, based on popular Chinese novels.