Activision Blizzard (ATVI, $49.55) edges past Q1 estimates, but disappoints on full-year guidance; stock declines -4% after-hours

Despite beating both earnings and revenue estimates for the first quarter, Activision Blizzard disappointed on its guidance for the full year 2019.

The video game company’s earnings per share came in at 58 cents on a GAAP basis, racing ahead of Wall Street estimates of 44 cents. The earnings-per-share, however, was -10.7% lower from the year-ago quarter.

Sales declined -7% year-over-year to $1.83 billion, but surpassed analysts’ expectations of $1.22 billion.

Looking ahead, Activision forecasts full year 2019 GAAP earnings-per-share of $1.18 – which is lower compared to analysts’ expectations of $1.32. The company predicts that revenue would be $6.025 billion for 2019, below Wall Street forecasts of $6.43 billion. 

The company's shares lost more than -4% during after-hours trading Thursday.

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Sergey Savastiouk|Expert

Sergey Savastiouk, Ph.D. has a degree in Applied Mathematics from Moscow University and has extensive experience as an entrepreneur, investor, manager, and mathematician. His professional expertise is in applied mathematics, mathematical modeling, system and pattern analysis, and software and hardware system integration. He has served as the CEO of several hi-tech start-up companies and nonprofit organizations, which has given him proven capabilities in business strategy for high-tech start-up companies, market assessment, company formation, team building, product development, marketing, and sales. He has published numerous articles in journals and magazines on related fields. As a retail investor, he spent 15 years developing his proprietary trading and quantitative algorithms (now Tickeron’s A.I.), which brought him significant returns in trading the stock market. His current work and goal in founding Tickeron is to bring professional, sophisticated stock market analysis capabilities to retail investors via an easy-to-use interface.