Ubisoft has signed a huge new licensing deal that is expected to significantly accelerate its mobile earnings.
Today Ubisoft announced a substantial partnership that will help boost its mobile presence. The publisher has signed a licensing deal with an unnamed publisher and/or developer to make a new mobile game based on a popular game franchise.
Ubisoft has received an upfront payment that will be recognized this fiscal year and help boost topline growth by 10% year-over-year, but the game won't launch in 2022 and still remains unannounced. Ubisoft will also receive royalties and payments after the game is released. This appears to be a separate deal from the Tencent partnership.
"We also announced today a licensing deal on mobile for one of our AAA brands."
"On top of significantly advancing our mobile footprint for the years to come, it will materially impact our P&L cash allowances for the financial year. We will announce more details on this partnership in due course.
"At the full-year level, we continue to expect significant topline year-on-year growth now above 10%. The bigger driver of this growth will be the partnership,"Ubisoft CFO Frederick Duguet said in a recent Q1 FY23 earnings call.
Likely candidates could include publishers like Take-Two Interactive x Zynga or other major titans like NetEase, who has been snapping up AAA studios and making adaptations of key titles like Diablo Immortal.
Duguet continued discussing the deal in a response to an analyst's question during the Q&A portion:
"This is a major partnership. It will allow us to increase our mobile footprint for years to come. The partnership is built upon a sizable upfront component that will positively impact the P&L this fiscal year and a revenue share scheme for the future.
"This is a licensing agreement on our IP that includes one game and we will say more in the future. But what we can say is this is not a game that is planned for this year, but an unannounced game that will come in the future."
Here's what Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot said in a press release:
"The new high-value mobile partnership for one of our brands reflects the powerful appeal of our brands for the fast-growing AAA mobile segment. It also provides our teams with more time to fully realize their creative vision and deliver high-quality experiences for our fans, while at the same time increasing our visibility for both 2022-23 and 2023-24."