Atari Restructuring Boosts Infogrames Revenue 45 Percent

French publisher Infogrames, owner of Atari, saw its revenue grow 44.5 percent over the first half of its fiscal year, thanks to the successful reshaping of its U.S. operations. Though the company still reported an operating loss, it narrowed to -7.5 percent, alongside revenues of €131.8 million. In keeping with standard French business practices, further profit details were not revealed at. However, following its acquisition and restructuring of Atari, the company reported growth of 176 percent in the U.S. Infogrames says Alone in the Dark, the evergreen Dragon Ball Z series and Backyard Baseball were the primary contributors to the improved results. In addition to the merger with Atari, the company also recently created a new in-house development studio headed by SingStar creator Paulina Bozek, and signed a distribution deal with Namco Bandai. The company is consequently retaining its full-year estimates of 12 to 18 percent revenue growth, and says it will return to operating profitability by the second half of 2009-2010 on a 12-month basis. "Strong revenues growth for the first half of the fiscal year 2008/2009 reflect strong sales and solid distribution," said CEO David Gardner. "This first half of the year also showed improvement of current operating income resulting from improved cost control, the early results of restructuring plan and profitability measures implemented since the beginning of the fiscal year." "I also would like to point out the turnaround in the U.S. with tremendous revenue growth of 145 percent and reduction of losses," he continued. "Given current economic situation, we think that holiday period will be very competitive, however we reiterate our full year revenues growth guidance." "We are very confident that this first half is just the beginning of a new positive trend as we are efficiently rolling out our strategy, by strengthening our distribution revenues with new partnerships and improving our 2009 / 2010 products line up with new titles such as the recently announced Ghostbusters and The Chronicles of Riddick."