Sales for the third quarter of fiscal 2017-18 amounted to €725.0 million, outstripping the target of around €700.0 million that was recently revised upwards from an original target of around €630.0 million, and up 36.8% (41.0% at constant exchange rates) compared with €529.9 million for third-quarter 2016-17. For the first nine months of fiscal 2017-18, sales totaled €1,191.2 million, up 46.8% (50.1% at constant exchange rates) on the €811.3 million recorded in the corresponding prior-year period.
Ubisoft expects fourth-quarter 2017-18 sales to come in at approximately €449.0 million, compared with €648.6 million for the same period of 2016-17 (which saw the releases of Ghost Recon Wildlands and For HonorTM). Fourth-quarter 2017 will see the following main releases:
Far Cry® 5 for PC, Playstation®4 and Xbox One™
Assassin’s Creed Origins – Discovery Tour, for PC, Playstation®4 and Xbox One™
DLC for Assassin’s Creed Origins: The Hidden Ones and The Curse of the Pharaohs, for PC, Playstation®4 and Xbox One™
DLC for Rainbow Six Siege: Operation Chimera, for PC, Playstation®4 and Xbox One™
For Honor Season 5: Age of Wolves, for PC, Playstation®4 and Xbox One™
DLC for South ParkTM: The Fractured But Whole – From Dusk till Casa Bonita, for PC, Playstation®4 and Xbox One™
Recent significant events
Partnership between Tencent and Ketchapp: Ubisoft and Tencent have announced a strategic partnership to bring a selection of Ketchapp games to Tencent’s newly-launched mobile Weixin mini-game application. Weixin is WeChat’s mirror application for Mainland China users, with 980 million active user accounts (MAU).
€500 million bond issue: Ubisoft has successfully placed €500 million worth of five-year bonds maturing in January 2023 and carrying an annual coupon of 1.289%. The order book reached over €2.2 billion and was more than 4.4 times oversubscribed. The net proceeds from the issue will be used for general corporate purposes, including to refinance certain existing debt. The bond offering has enabled Ubisoft to extend its debt maturity profile at a more attractive cost compared with existing financial instruments, and to further diversify its debt investor base.
