Blizzard posts record $1 billion in quarterly revenue, as Diablo IV drives Activision Blizzard’s Q2 growth

Financial highlights for Q2 2023

• According to Activision Blizzard’s financial report, the company’s total net revenue was $2.2 billion, up 34% year-over-year. Digital sales accounted for 91% of the total figure.
• Revenue from in-game purchases and subscriptions reached $1.68 billion (+25.8%), and pure game sales were $520 million (+71%).
• Mobile was the largest platform by revenue, with $943 million (up 13% year-over-year), followed by PC ($594 million, +79%) and console ($556 million, +48%).
• Net bookings (net revenue excluding deferred revenue) grew 50% year-over-year to $2.46 billion. In-game purchases accounted for 63.4% of the total figure.
• Operating income was $583 million, up 72.4% year-over-year.
• “While we continue to have concerns about the economy and growing industry competition, we remain focused on the long-term opportunities ahead and completing our merger with Microsoft,” Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick said.

The company’s results by segments

Activision

• Net revenue — $574 million, up 17% year-over-year.
• Operating income — $167 million, up 81.5% year-over-year.
• Monthly active users (MAU) — 92 million, less than the same period last year (94 million) and Q1 2023 (98 million).
• Call of Duty currently has around 90 MAU, with over half of them playing on mobile.
• Call of Duty: Mobile surpassed $3 billion in lifetime revenue.

Blizzard

• Net revenue — $1.049 billion, up 168% year-over-year (first-ever $1 billion quarter).
• Operating income — $409 million, up 335% year-over-year.
• MAU — 26 million, less than the same period last year and Q1 2023 (27 million each).
• Revenue and operating income growth was driven by huge sales of Diablo IV ($666 million made in its first five days), with over 10 million users playing it in June.
• Player engagement in Overwatch 2 “declined sequentially”, while World of Warcraft: Dragonflight‘s subscriber retention in the West “remains higher than at the equivalent stage” of recent expansions.

King

• Net revenue — $747 million, up 9% year-over-year.
• Operating income — $266 million, down 2% year-over-year.
• MAU — 238 million, less than the same period last year (240 million) and Q1 2023 (243 million).
• The acquisition of AI company Peltarion is now “helping King to accelerate the production and testing of Candy Crush live operations and to offer more relevant game content to players.” The company is also exploring additional use cases involving generative AI to accelerate its developers’ workflow.