Ubisoft Q1 Sales Fall Over One-Third Year-Over-Year

Ubisoft announced today sales for its fiscal first quarter were €103 million ($146.3 million), down 36.3 percent from a year ago, though above company expectations of €90 million ($126.9 million) for the period. Results were up in certain subsegments of company sales, with Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood and dance titles helping drive catalog sales up 84 percent to €68 million ($96.5 million) and XBLA titles helping increase online sales 45 percent to €12.5 million ($17.75 million). Ubisoft said it expects titles like Driver: San Francisco, Ghost Recon Online and Trackmania 2 to drive sales of around €99 million ($140.6 million) in the coming quarter, on par with the previous year. The company did not change sales expectations for the full fiscal year, which are expected to just top €1 billion ($1.42 billion). Xbox 360 sales represented 45 percent of Ubisoft's business for the quarter, up from 36 percent last year, while the Wii's share of Ubisoft sales fell from 27 percent to 20 percent, perhaps owing to the new availability of Kinect-powered games on Microsoft's system. The company also used the earnings release to highlight its recent purchase of online game company Owlient, pointing out the company's "architecture dedicated to delivering and monetizing games as a service, as well as the expertise of attracting and retaining online communities." Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said the Owlient purchase "marks an increased acceleration of Ubisoft's free-to-play strategy and of our capacity to seize the strong growth opportunities provided by the Online segment" in a statement.