ATVI Activision Blizzard Inc

Electronic Arts Inc. leaned on its "Star Wars" and sports franchises to close out its fiscal year with better-than-expected revenue and profit.

The videogame publisher Tuesday said it squeezed out more than a million additional sales of its "Star Wars Battlefront" console and PC game in the fourth quarter. As of the end of March, EA sold more than 14 million copies to retailers. It has expansion packs and a sequel on the way.

Adjusted revenue rose 3.1% to $924 million from $896 million a year ago. Wall Street had expected revenue to slide a hair to $888.8 million, according to Thomson Reuters. Adjusted profit rose to 50 cents a share from 39 cents. Wall Street had expected 42 cents.

Under U.S. accounting rules, videogame companies defer some revenue from certain online-enabled games. Adjusted revenue counts all sales in the quarter, and can exclude other factors Wall Street and the company don't consider a regular part of business.

Shares of EA, which topped $66 at the start of the year but fell to $55.50 by early February, was up two cents to $64.54 as of 4 p.m. in New York. In after-hours trading, the stock was up 7.3% to $69.23.

EA laid out its forecast for fiscal 2017. It expects full-year revenue on an adjusted basis to grow around 7% to about $4.9 billion, and per-share profit of $3.50. Under generally accepted accounting principles, it expects revenue to grow to $4.75 billion and per-share profit of $2.53.

For the current fiscal first quarter, EA expects adjusted revenue of about $640 million and a loss of about 5 cents a share on an adjusted basis. On a GAAP basis, EA expects a profit of $1.30 a share on revenue of about $1.25 billion.

EA, which has struggled to unseat incumbents such as Supercell Oy in mobile gaming, said more people are regularly playing its free-to-download games, citing limited-time events that prod users to open its apps on a daily basis.

It said monthly active users—a metric commonly touted by social-media networks—rose 30% for its "Madden NFL Mobile" game from a year ago. EA said it also saw robust use from people who downloaded its "Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes." Players spent more than two hours a day on average in the game in the fiscal fourth quarter, the company said.

"We're trying to keep people playing games they love for a longer period of time," EA finance chief Blake Jorgensen said. "That may lead to greater monetization."

Mobile is critical to game publishers, particularly those that built their businesses on console and PC games. EA had the most downloaded mobile games in 2015 on Apple Inc.'s and Alphabet Inc.'s app stores in both the U.S. and world-wide, according to industry tracker App Annie.

Mobile is the videogame industry's fastest-growing sector, slated to climb 37% over the next four years and reach $48 billion in annual revenue by 2020, according to Digi-Capital Inc., a mergers and acquisitions advisory firm.

Activision Blizzard Inc. in February paid $5.9 billion to acquire "Candy Crush Saga" maker King Digital Entertainment PLC. Activision Blizzard reported earnings last week that blew past Wall Street's expectations, in part because of the addition of King and the rising tide of digital sales.

At EA, digital sales accounted for a record 55% of revenue, the company said. For the quarter, adjusted digital sales reached $712 million, up 18% from a year ago. The company's "Ultimate Team" sports games, which EA calls live services, saw adjusted revenue up 26% from a year earlier -- 33% when adjusting for the stronger U.S. dollar.

"Without a doubt more and more people are finding the ease of buying things digitally no different than buying books, movies, music or whatever it might be," Mr. Jorgensen said.

On a GAAP basis, EA's fiscal fourth quarter net was $899 million, up from $395 million a year ago. Revenue was $1.31 billion, up from $1.19 billion.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at sarah.needleman@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

May 10, 2016 16:55 ET (20:55 GMT)

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