Ubisoft Releases Second Quarter Sales Figures

Ubisoft's Paris headquarters today announced its financial results covering the second financial quarter ended September 30th, 2004. Spurred by strong sales from titles such as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, Myst IV: Revelation and Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Black Arrow, all of which have charted highly in various territories, Ubisoft reported sales up 9 percent during the quarter, rising from €63 million (USD $80 million) last year to €68 million (USD $86 million) this year, although the company didn't prominently display its profit or loss for the quarter. During the quarter, Ubisoft particularly singled out Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Pandora Tomorrow for selling 2.8 million units since launch, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Black Arrow for topping the Xbox charts when launched in France, Germany and the UK, and Myst IV: Revelation for ranking as the 3rd top selling PC title in France and 5th in Germany at launch. Looking ahead, Ubisoft claims high growth in the second half of the 2004-2005 fiscal year, with game releases including: Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within (November 2004), Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon 2 (November 2004), Brothers In Arms (February 2005), Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005) and multiple new Nintendo DS titles. They did, however, note a predicted reduction in profit for the third fiscal quarter due to the postponement of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory. Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, commented: "After a better-than-expected first half, the second part of the fiscal year looks very promising with several launches of high quality titles planned on a fast growing market. We are also making steady progress towards one of our main objectives for the year: the strengthening of our studios. As of the end of September, we had attained 70% of our annual objective of new talent recruitment. Ubisoft will therefore continue to gain market share and expand its product range in all current and future formats." The company also reported that it plans on having a strong presence on the new generation of consoles, as well as continued support for the current generation, with upcoming titles including the previously announced, Peter Jackson film-based King Kong game for Christmas 2005, an all-new Star Wars title called Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith for the PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS and Game Boy Advance, and a number of unannounced titles for the coming hardware generation. Looking forward financially, Ubisoft expects third quarter sales for fiscal 2004 - 2005 to be in the range of €180 - €190 million (USD $229 million - $241 million), on top of annual sales growth of 10 percent or more.