Mad Catz Releases Promising Fiscal 2005 Results

Mad Catz has released its financial results for fiscal year 2005, a period ending March 31st, 2005. The year saw Mad Catz take in record earnings; the yearly net sales were $112.1 million, a 10% increase over the $102.1 million net sales in fiscal year 2004. Gross profit was $27.7 million, a 24% increase from 2004's $22.3 million. The company attributed its successes for the year to new licenses, including agreements with the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball. It also reaped heavy profits from its PlayStation Portable line of accessories, and its non-gaming products for the iPod and iPod Mini. Non-accessory-related income came from its agreement to sell downloadable games through its Gameshark.com site. Mad Catz president and CEO Darren Richardson commented both on the 2005 success as well as 2006's potential. "Over the last four quarters, we met our goals of differentiating ourselves from other video game accessory providers and we are well positioned to extend our market leadership during the upcoming console transition." "Historically," said Richardson, "a console transition is characterized by uncertain demand, and we are currently seeing some softness in the North American market in our fiscal 2006 first quarter. However, we are optimistic that our strategy of expanding our European distribution and adding new revenue streams to leverage our existing infrastructure will generate long-term growth and profitability improvements in fiscal 2006." Mad Catz will also partner with Mastiff in FY 2006 to distribute the PlayStation 2 title Pump It Up, a dancing game from Korea; presumably, Mad Catz will manufacture the dance mat and handle the distribution, while Mastiff handles the software production.