Activision Sales and Profits Rise in Fiscal 2008

Activision has announced its fiscal results for the year of 2007, which officially ends on March 31 and, boy, do they have a lot of reasons to be happy with themselves. The videogame publisher and developer has registered revenues of 2.9 billion dollars, which is almost 100% more than the revenues it cashed in during the previous fiscal year. Profits are also at a record level of almost 345 million dollars. Even more impressive is the fact that for the last 16 years Activision has been reported to be making a profit and growing.

However, the buys at Activision are not going to settle for record financial numbers. The publishing arm of the company now claims that it is the number-one third-party publisher in the US in terms of console and handheld software, with a market share that has grown from 10.1% to 17.3% in only one year.

The main money makers for the company are Call of Duty 4 and Guitar Hero III. The two games posted very good sales numbers. Call of Duty managed to sell more that 9 million copies worldwide, while the music simulator has generated about 1 billion dollars in revenue on its own.

Bobby Kotick, the Chief Executive Officer of Activision, stated that "Fiscal 2008 was the best year in our history and Q4 was the largest and most profitable nonholiday quarter, even though we did not release any new titles."

Even though Activision has released an earning estimate for 2008, it's largely meaningless as the company is set to merge with Vivendi Games and form the biggest videogames company in the industry. The tentative deadline for the merger is set somewhere during summer. Kotick stated that "our intention is to close by the end of the first half" as he talked to market analysts after the financial results were presented.