“We need to make sure that we’re enabling our franchises on the billions of mobile devices that are available right now. That’s by far our biggest opportunity and we’re investing meaningfully to capitalize on this and to take all our franchises to mobile over time.”
– Activision Blizzard president and COO Daniel Alegre comments on its future mobile aspiritions
Mobile is, so far, going well for Activision Blizzard but its current dabblings on the platform, which include Call of Duty: Mobile and its 300 million worldwide downloads, are only the beginning.
Top Activision Blizzard execs talked about their vision for the massive company’s future on mobile in a recent call with investors, exploring a desire to bring more of its flagship franchises to the platform and expand its current dealings into new regions.
While the company sees the value in emerging platforms like cloud-based streaming services, Activision Blizzard’s first priority is aiming its development efforts at platforms with proven effect. Mobile, for instance, is where the company sees its biggest opportunities, with Activision Blizzard president and COO Daniel Alegre expressing interest in bringing “all our franchises to mobile over time.”
Currently, Call of Duty: Mobile is at the front and center of Activision Blizzard’s mobile expansion, though the company has the added benefit on the mobile front of including Candy Crush-maker King in its portfolio of studios.
On the Call of Duty: Mobile front, Activision president Rob Kostich says that the game has crossed 300 million worldwide downloads in the year or so since it first debuted. The in-game celebration of that launch, according to Kostich, saw the strongest week in terms of gross bookings in the game’s history, and the hope is that’ll continue to trend upwards.
“In terms of future growth, we do still see strong potential for Call of Duty: Mobile. China obviously we believe can become a significant contributor to our overall franchise revenues,” says Kostich. “And we talked about how the title has been approved and now it’s in final testing. So again, we expect to see it soon. We think can have great impact in the region.”
“And it’s really not just China,” he continues. “For example, Mexico and Brazil are top five markets for us in terms of both installs and revenue. And so we see a big opportunity to further expand geographically in other markets through mobile through increased marketing and accessibility initiatives over the coming quarters.”