Sales and income climb at Square Enix

Square Enix has reported an increase in sales and income for the year ending March 2015.

Net sales were up 8.3 per cent at 168bn, with operating income up 55.8 per cent at 16bn and net income up 49 per cent at nearly 10bn.

In isolation, digital entertainment division sales climbed 18.4 per cent to 112bn with operating income up 61.3 per cent at 17bn.

Despite the numbers, however, the company focused much of its investor presentation on the changing state of the games market and the ways in which it intends to adapt to suit it.

The business environment surrounding the group is in the midst of major changes, where smart devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs are spreading rapidly, while the console game markets in North America and Europe are increasingly competitive and oligopolistic,” the company said.

In light of such environmental changes, the group is focusing all efforts on a substantial earnings improvement through driving reforms of business structure in order to establish new revenue base.”

Back-catalogue digital sales were described as strong”, making up for the decrease in the number of console games released by the company. MMO duo Final Fantasy XIV and Dragon Quest X are apparently making favourable progress”.

The publisher’s investor presentation made a point of highlighting the increasing diversity of business models currently shaping the games industry including fixed price, F2P and subscriptions.

It cites its main game strategies as strengthening and rebooting existing IPs”, creating new IPs” and collaborating with partner companies” while stressing that it intends to target emerging markets including Russia, India, South America, Asia and the Middle East.

Upcoming title Final Fantasy XV is not named in any of the company’s presentation material for the coming year.