Capcom is boasting that the company is on track to achieve 10 years of profit growth.
Capcom's half-year report for fiscal year 2022 is in, and the company is reporting a mix of sliding sales and increased expectations for the rest of the fiscal year.
In the six-month period ending September 30, 2022, Capcom earned about 49 billion yen (about $333 million) in net sales. That's a 29 percent decrease from the same period in 2021. Operating Income (Capcom's measure for profit) also decreased 24 percent year-over-year to 21.8 billion yen.
Are those decreases cause for concern for Capcom? Apparently not. The company described its 2022 performance in positive terms, praising its Digital Contents business for managing to sell 21.3 million copies of its games (apparently largely driven by the release of Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak). With that context in mind, Capcom pointed investors to the major difference between 2021 and 2022—the release of Monster Hunter Rise, which is still driving an incredible amount of revenue for the company.
In August, Capcom revealed that Monster Hunter Rise expansion Sunbreak had sold over 4 million units, with Monster Hunter Rise having sold over 11 million units since its 2021 launch. Today's update only tells us that Sunbreak has sold another 400,000 or so units in the intervening months.
For those curious about Capcom's arcade operations division (which took a big hit in the COVID-19 pandemic), the company is reporting increased sales and profits thanks to the lifting of restrictions in Japan. The division was able to pull in 7.3 million yen in arcade sales (up 29.7 percent from 2021), and achieve an operating income of 677 million yen (up 845.1 percent from 2021).
The release of new Shin Onimusha and Biohazard arcade machines also drove renewed post-COVID revenue, driving 3 million yen in revenue and 1.7 million yen in operating profit. Both are major increases over the perior fiscal year.
Though video game sales will still be at the center of Capcom's business model, it'll be worth watching if anything interesting happens in its arcade and "amusement equipments" businesses as arcades begin to fill up once again in Japan and other countries.
Capcom's 2022 performance is apparently going so well that the company revised its year-end forecast. In May, the company predicted it would earn 120 billion yen in revenue in fiscal year 2022. It's now predicting it will earn 125 billion yen instead, a four percent increase. Expected operating income also rose from 48 billion yen to 50 billion yen.
A four percent increase in predicted growth isn't a lot to write home about it, but Capcom probably won't shrug off what is the equivalent of $34 million in revenue. It's also putting the company's performance in specific context:
Assuming some global disaster doesn't halt the sale of video games, Capcom is on track to achieve 10 years of growing profit, which would be an incredibly positive performance for any video game company. Given that said decade saw some financial boondoggles like the closure of Capcom Vancouver, maintaining business stability and growth is no mean feat.
Investors seem to agree, with Capcom's stock price starting to rise in early-morning trading.
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