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FIFA and F1 drive EA to Q1 growth

Codemasters racer outperforms expectations as FIFA Ultimate Team average player numbers jump 40%

Despite a downturn in the financial fortunes of many publishers, Electronic Arts continues to show growth thanks in large part to its sporting efforts.

The company today reported results for the first quarter of its fiscal year (three months ended June 30), showing sales and profit growth driven by its F1 and FIFA franchises.

Electronic Arts Q1 numbers

Revenue: $1.77 billion (up 14% year-on-year)
Bookings: $1.3 billion (down 3%)
Net income: $311 million (up 52%)

"Our FIFA franchise and the successful launch of F1 drove our net bookings outperformance, delivering another quarter ahead of expectations," said EA CFO Chris Suh.

EA reported growing engagement across a number of FIFA efforts, with FIFA Mobile seeing record quarterly daily active users, FIFA Ultimate Team seeing a 40% jump in year-over-year daily and weekly average player counts, and FIFA Online posting unspecified record engagement numbers.

The F1 series also delivered net bookings ahead of EA's expectations.

Beyond those efforts, EA's year-over-year numbers were also boosted by the acquisition of Golf Clash developer Playdemic, a deal that closed in the publisher's second quarter last year.

Company-wide, EA reported 600 million active EA accounts, up 3% quarter-over-quarter.

EA also reiterated its previous guidance for the full fiscal year, and announced a quarterly cash dividend of $0.19 a share that would be paid out to shareholders next month.