Digital sales dominate Activision Blizzard's better-than-expected earnings

After wrapping up its second quarter of the fiscal year last month, Activision Blizzard today reported earnings that were better than expected -- with revenues from sales of physical goods once again vastly outstripped by digital sales.  

For the three months ending June 30th Activision Blizzard's revenues reportedly rose 4 percent year-over-year to (GAAP) $1.63 billion, which is a bit better than the $1.42 billion the company had predicted it would make.

On that revenue Activision Blizzard claims it reported record-setting Q2 profits of $0.32 a share, which is roughly 60 percent better than the $0.20/share it reported during the same quarter a year prior.  

Just like the previous quarter, the majority of the company's quarterly revenues (80 percent, or $1.3 billion) came from digital online sales -- everything from full games to loot boxes to microtransactions.

Breaking down the earnings by segment, it appears Blizzard is the top earner in Activision Blizzard right now; it accounts for 42 percent of this quarter's revenues, while King generated 35 percent and 23 percent came from Activision.

No specific games were called out as being key drivers of this quarter's results, though Activision Blizzard did talk up everything from Overwatch to the recently-released Crash Bandicoot remaster to next month's Destiny 2. When it came time to dig into its engagement stats by segment, the company noted that only Blizzard saw its monthly active user count rise year-over-year -- up 38 percent to 46 million players across Blizzard's various games.

By comparison, Activision saw a slight year-over-year decrease to 47 million monthly active players for the quarter, while King reported 314 million -- easily outstripping the other segments, but also a slight year-over-year decrease for the Candy Crush maker.