Trading Update and Jurassic World Evolution Launch
12 June 2018
Frontier Developments plc
Trading Update and launch of Jurassic World Evolution
Frontier Developments plc (AIM: FDEV; "Frontier" or the "Group"), a leading independent developer and publisher of video games, provides an update on trading for financial year 2018 ("FY18" - the 12 months ended 31 May 2018) and confirms the launch of Jurassic World Evolution™ today as planned.
Frontier's first two franchises, Elite Dangerous (launched in 2014) and Planet Coaster (launched in 2016), continue to perform well, generating sustained revenue streams following the strong performance delivered in the first half of FY18 (the six months to 30 November 2017). As a result, the Board expects to report financial results for FY18 ahead of market expectations, with revenue of approximately £34 million and operating profit (as calculated under IFRS) of approximately £2 million. As the launch date for Jurassic World Evolution falls into financial year 2019, no pre-order revenue for the game has been recognised in FY18.
After an encouraging reaction to pre-launch marketing including digital pre-order sales, Frontier's third franchise, Jurassic World Evolution™ launches as planned today, on the first day of E3 Expo, the biggest games industry event of the year and within days of the opening of the Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom film. The game is now available for digital download on Steam for PC, the PlayStation®4 computer entertainment system, and the Xbox One all-in-one games and entertainment system.
David Braben, Chief Executive, said:
"The launch of Jurassic World Evolution, our third franchise, is another exciting milestone for Frontier. Today highlights the ongoing success of our strategy to create long-term growth through developing, operating and self-publishing multiple successful game franchises.
I am very happy with the game and hope that players enjoy building their own Jurassic World as much as we did developing it. It is the culmination of outstanding work by the team and I would like to thank everyone for their significant efforts.
I look forward to providing updates on our exciting future games in due course, together with news on our three popular existing franchises as we enhance their content further - for example, we will release Elite Dangerous: Beyond - Chapter 2 on 28 June 2018."
Frontier is scaling up to build a broad portfolio of franchises, each different to the last, and each with the capability to offer sustained revenue streams as already seen with Elite Dangerous and Planet Coaster. Releases of new franchises can be expected to drive steps up in the Group's financial performance.
The Group's future franchise portfolio is likely to contain a mixture of owned-IP (like Elite Dangerous and Planet Coaster) and licensed-IP (like Jurassic World Evolution). Frontier already has future franchises in different phases of development. Subject to Frontier's disclosure obligations as an AIM company, it is the Board's intention to make announcements about future franchises at the optimum time for the success of that particular franchise. This may be some time after the start of a particular project, and not necessarily at the time of the signature of an agreement with a development or IP partner.
As communicated in the Group's previous Annual Reports, in addition to the current core model of using internal resources supplemented by outsourced services, the Group will continue to explore other models to accelerate its scale-up by further leveraging existing expertise, intellectual property, publishing presence, relationships and financial position. These models include third party publishing (controlling the promotion and distribution of other developers' games), commissioning (outsourcing the majority of development of Frontier games to other developers), and enhancing the Group's franchise portfolio or capabilities via acquisitions.
Frontier expects to announce its audited full year results for the 12 months ending 31 May 2018 on Wednesday 5 September 2018.
Enquiries:
Frontier Developments +44 (0)1223 394300
David Braben, CEO / David Walsh, COO / Alex Bevis, CFO
Liberum - Nomad and Joint Broker +44 (0)20 3100 2000
Neil Patel / Cameron Duncan
finnCap - Joint Broker +44 (0) 20 7220 0500
Matt Goode / Giles Rolls / Alice Lane
Tulchan Communications +44 (0) 20 7353 4200
James Macey White / Matt Low
About Frontier Developments plc
Frontier Developments plc, listed on the AIM stock market (AIM: FDEV), is a leading independent creator of self-published videogame franchises founded in 1994 by David Braben, co-author of the seminal 'Elite' game. Based in Cambridge, UK, Frontier uses its proprietary 'COBRA' game development technology to create innovative videogames for home consoles and personal computers. Frontier's LEI number: 213800B9LGPWUAZ9GX18.
The information communicated in this announcement is inside information for the purposes of Article 7 of Regulation 596/2014.
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