NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Electronic Arts (EA) posted mixed third-quarter earnings which left investors wanting more to play with. In after-hours trading, shares took off 2.3% to $24.87, after jumping 1.6% over Tuesday's session.
The video game publisher, second-largest in the U.S., posted net income of $1.26 a share in its December-ended quarter, three cents higher than Thomson Reuters estimates. Revenue of $1.57 missed the mark, falling short of the $1.66 billion analysts were hoping for, and 12% lower than a year earlier.
One factor depressing revenues, the release of new consoles such as Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox One last year hampered the sale of older-generation video games.
Also hurting sales, EA's tent-pole game of the year, Battlefield 4, was plagued with glitches since its launch in October and has delayed the release of future games until the issues have been resolved. Even so, the first-person-shooter game managed to hold the number 2 spot on NPD's top-selling games in the U.S. over December, second only to Activision's wildly successful Call of Duty: Ghosts. For its year ending March, the Redwood City, Calif.-based company predicts net revenue of $3.91 billion, $110 million short of consensus, and earnings of $1.30 a share, beating estimates by 2 cents. TheStreet Ratings team rates ELECTRONIC ARTS INC as a Hold with a ratings score of C. The team has this to say about their recommendation: "We rate ELECTRONIC ARTS INC (EA) a HOLD. The primary factors that have impacted our rating are mixed -- some indicating strength, some showing weaknesses, with little evidence to justify the expectation of either a positive or negative performance for this stock relative to most other stocks. The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its solid stock price performance, growth in earnings per share and compelling growth in net income. However, as a counter to these strengths, we find that revenues have generally been declining." You can view the full analysis from the report here: EA Ratings Report
Stock quotes in this article: EA
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