Tag Archives: gaap

‘Soda Saga’ game performs royally for King Digital

King Digital Entertainment (KING) got a fizzy lift from its “Candy Crush Soda Saga” game in the fourth quarter. The London-based mobile game publisher late Thursday delivered Q4 earnings that beat Wall Street’s expectations, giving its shares a nice pop Friday. King Digital stock was up more than 12% in midday trading on the stock market today, near 16.50. Meanwhile, rival mobile game company Zynga (ZNGA) took a dive after reporting December-quarter sales well below forecasts. Named after the co-founder’s dog, Zynga lived up to its name, falling 15% in midday trading Friday, to 2.25. King (KING) said that it had earned 57 cents a share excluding items on sales of $559 million in Q4. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters were modeling 47 cents and $520 million. Using Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), King’s earnings per share were 44 cents in Q4, vs. expectations for 38 cents. King also announced a…

Activision boosted by ‘Destiny,’ digital game sales

It was “Destiny” that Activision Blizzard would beat Wall Street’s third-quarter earnings target. Now its “Call of Duty” is to do the same this quarter. The video game publisher got a big assist from the successful launch of “Destiny,” its new science-fiction shooter franchise, released on Sept. 9. Activision (ATVI) said late Tuesday that it had earned 23 cents a share excluding items in Q3, up from 8 cents in the year-earlier quarter and topping the consensus estimate of 13 cents among analysts polled by Thomson Reuters. Adjusted sales rose 78% to $1.17 billion, beating the $1.01 billion forecast by Wall Street. Under U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), Activision lost 3 cents a share, vs. a profit of 5 cents. GAAP-based sales rose 9% to $753 million. In Q3, GAAP-based sales from digital channels represented a record 67% of the total revenue. On a non-GAAP basis, digital channel sales…