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Below are key drivers of value that present opportunities for upside or downside to the current Trefis price estimate for Electronic Arts's stock.
In the changing video game landscape, EA has been focusing on downloadable content, subscriptions, and other supplementary services to generate income. As product costs, warehousing and distribution costs, and manufacturing royalties are not applicable to these streams, they also have higher margins. We expect EA's Console revenue to see a strong growth to $6.1 billion over the course of our forecast period, compared to $3.7 billion in fiscal 2020. However, if this figure increases to $8 billion driven by stronger adoption of in-game services, increased breadth of these services and improved monetization, there can be nearly 20% upside to our price estimate for EA.
Electronic Arts is an international developer, marketer, publisher, and distributor of games for video game consoles, personal computers, mobile phones, and the Internet. Currently, EA's most successful products are sports games published under its EA Sports label (such as FIFA, Madden NFL, and NHL), games based on popular movies such as Harry Potter, and games from long-running franchises such as Need for Speed and The Sims. The company is gradually entering the First-Person Shooter (FPS) genre led by its Titanfall and Battlefield titles.
Product revenues are primarily generated from the sale of video games. EA also generates revenues from downloadable content, subscriptions, and other services such as in-game advertising.
Over the past few years, the revenue from Mobile platform has seen faster growth compared to the company's other segments. Mobile gaming is seeing increased demand across the globe, with an increase in time spent on smartphones. That said, hardcore gamers usually prefer playing on consoles, which is the largest segment for Electronic Arts in terms of revenues. Therefore, for EA, both these revenue streams are important. Going forward, we expect the console revenue stream to grow at a faster pace compared to Mobile, primarily due to the launch of new generation consoles in the holiday season of 2020.
The video game landscape has changed significantly over the last few years. Through the last decade, the advent of smartphones and tablets has increased the ease of access to games, leading to the rise of casual gaming. Gamers are no longer restricted to consoles and high-end PCs but can use their smartphones to play games on the go. As a result of this revolution, video game companies have had to change their business model to adapt to the evolving market.
In 2007, the launch of the iPhone and Android based smartphones created a new platform to which the casual gamers, who spent a limited amount of time playing games, started migrating. By 2010, games like Angry Birds and Fruit Ninja were taking away market share from EA’s console based casual games like DeathSpank, Green Day: Rock Band, and Create. The company reacted to this trend by cutting down on the number of titles released, and focusing on secondary service streams such as downloadable content (DLC), subscriptions, matchmaking, and in-game advertising.
Another factor contributing to the sales slump was console fatigue, as the seventh generation consoles had been around for eight years until the XBox One and Playstation 4 were launched in 2013. The next-generation launches refreshed the console cycle, and the initial response to the consoles was strong, though software sales initially lagged behind hardware sales.
The discrepancy between hardware and software sales could be due to a natural lag; gamers might prefer to buy the console first and then move on to buying software. Another factor for the lagging software sales might be the shift towards casual games; core gamers are still buying consoles and software, but casual gamers might not favor the expensive eighth-generation consoles over the smartphone and tablet platforms.
Currently, each Xbox One console sold is accompanied by nearly three games on average. If the difference between software and hardware sales is indeed due to a natural lag, then we might see this figure increase. However a decline in the games to consoles ratio would indicate that casual gaming is eating into the console market.
The scenario in the gaming industry seems to improve in terms of software sales. Unlike 2014, video game software sales for 2015 were stronger. Even in 2017, the sales were higher. This indicates that unit sales per title have increased over the period, as more gamers made a shift to new generation console platforms.
Although the competitive video gaming sector has been there for a long time, it is just recently that the viewership and participation have picked up in the last five years. Moreover, the prize money and lucrative awards are attracting more professionals to this sector. Since FPS (First-Person Shooter) games are gradually becoming a part of the online competitive gaming landscape, it is the right time for the company to enter this market.