ATVI, the stock ticker abbreviation for Activision-Blizzard, has been adjusted downward in a rare instance where the gaming giant didn't meet Wall Street's expectations. The adjusted earnings per share is 47 cents as opposed to the projected 49 cents. However, revenue is up at $1.61B over last year's 1.57B. CEO Eric Hirshberg stated that "We've got good momentum here" after the launch on PC of Destiny 2.
With Call of Duty: WWII launching tomorrow, it's likely that earnings for the fourth quarter will rise. In addition, it is assumed that Blizzard will be announcing an expansion to World of Warcraft tomorrow and will doubtless open preorders which should also give a shot in the arm to ATVI.
Another downward trend for the company is its reporting of "monthly active users", a metric adopted in 2016. Currently standing at about 385M MAU, it is a drop of 6% over Q2 2017 and 20% over Q3 2016.
While at first glance, this may seem to spell trouble, the company is raising its "full-year outlook for revenues for the year", according to Venture Beat. While stocks fell off in early trading, they have rebounded and are up 1% currently.
Hearthstone is doing well with a double-digit increase in its audience. MAU for Hearthstone and Overwatch are also up. In addition the Overwatch League has signed up 12 teams and will be launching its inaugural season next month. King Mobile is also doing well with nearly 300M MAU. World of Warcraft MAU are stable, though how many subscribers the game has is unnamed in favor of the new metric.
You can check out the full report for yourself on the Activision-Blizzard Investor Relations site.
