Ubisoft’s Q1 revenues up 44% from last year at $153 million as Vivendi takeover lurks

Ubisoft had a strong quarter thanks to sales from digital revenues.

The France-based publisher reported its sales figures for the first fiscal quarter of 2016-17, a period that ended on June 30, 2016. Sales were at $153 million, higher than expectations of $137.66 million. This is also a 44 percent increase from the same period last year.

“Our solid figures for the first quarter of 2016-17 have confirmed the excellent digital trends and demonstrate we are successfully executing our strategic plan,” Yves Guillemot, cofounder and chief executive officer of Ubisoft, noted in the earnings report. “Player engagement levels reached record highs during the period, fueled by the success of The Division, Rainbow Six Siege, and Hungry Shark World.”

Digital revenue accounted for 75.3 percent of total sales, significantly up from 56 percent from the same period last year. This is a new record high for Ubisoft. Sales from back-catalogue games also rose 36.3 percent to $139.64 million.

The report comes as Ubisoft battle a hostile takeover bid from Vivendi.

“Vivendi has a reputation of taking control of many companies,” Guillemot noted in a conference call in May. “They want to do the same with ours. We will defend ourselves because this will be in the favor of their shareholders instead of all the shareholders. As for making sure they don’t have board members, it will be the decision of the shareholders.”

Guillemot also explained why he believes the future outlook for Ubisoft is strong.

“”The outlook for the video game industry has never been so promising,” Guillmot said in the earnings report. “Our growth drivers going forward include the digital transformation, the strong momentum of the PC, console and mobile markets, expansion into new geographic regions, including Asia, the excellent potential of esports and virtual reality, and the extension of the Group’s brands beyond video games. All of these factors will help us pursue our strong pace of value creation in the coming years”.

Ubisoft expects second quarter 2016-’17 sales to be around $110.13 million.