Electronic Arts Inc.

Good afternoon. My name is Chantelle, and I'll be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Electronic Arts Q3 Fiscal 2020 Earnings Conference Call. Mr. Chris Evendale, VP Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Thanks, Chantelle. Welcome to EA's third quarter fiscal 2020 earnings call. With me on the call today are Andrew Wilson, our CEO, and Blake Jorgensen, our COO and CFO. Please note that our SEC filings and our earnings release are available at ir.ea.com. In addition, we've posted earnings slides to accompany our prepared remarks. Lastly, after the call, we will post our prepared remarks and audio replay of this call, our financial model, and a transcript. With regards to our calendar, our Q4 fiscal 2020 earnings call is scheduled for Tuesday, May 5, 2020. This presentation and our comments include forward-looking statements regarding future events and the future financial performance of the company. Actual events and results may differ materially from our expectations. We refer you to our most recent form 10Q for a discussion of risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed today. Electronic Arts makes these statements as of today, January 30th, 2020, and disclaims any duty to update them. During this call, the financial metrics, with the exception of free cash flow, will be presented on a gap basis. All comparisons made in the course of this call are against the same period in the prior year unless otherwise stated. Now, I'll send the call over to Andrew.

Thanks, Chris. It was an excellent third quarter for Electronic Arts. With new games like the outstanding Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, as well as our dynamic live services for FIFA, Madden NFL, Apex Legends, and The Sims 4, we delivered unmatched depth and breadth to players over the holiday season. As a result, our revenue and earnings for Q3 were above our guidance, growing significantly year over year for the quarter. We're raising our full year guidance for the second time this fiscal year and we are on track to post a very strong year against our original projections for FY20. What we deliver to players in Q3 reflects the breadth and strength of our business, our focus on quality experiences and a deep commitment to execution. We're growing our IP portfolio with more great new games, our live services are among the most popular and highest performing in the industry and we're expanding to more distribution channels so we can connect more players to the games they love. As a result, players are deeply engaged in our top games, sentiment scores are strong and we are building momentum in the growth areas of our business. I'll touch on a few highlights here. Our portfolio of Star Wars games across all platforms has never been stronger. Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order was the action-adventure game that fans were looking for this holiday season. Respawn delivered an expertly crafted high quality experience with outstanding gameplay that thrilled players, made many of the game of the year lists and sold beyond our projections for the quarter. In addition to Jedi Fallen Order, the quality of the Star Wars Battlefront 2 experience is shining through as well. Two years and dozens of content updates later spanning all three trilogies and more, critics have re-reviewed the game to high scores Player sentiment is exceptional, and the Celebration Edition helped to drive performance of Battlefront II that was significantly above our Q3 expectations. Our communities in both Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes and Star Wars The Old Republic are thriving as well. The power of the Star Wars franchise continues to endure and grow across generations and geographies, and we look forward to continuing our momentum with Disney and Lucasfilm. It's nearly one year since we took the industry by storm with Apex Legends, and the strength and opportunity of this IP and live service continue to grow. Apex is an outstanding example of the innovation across our portfolio. Seasons of new content are coming at a regular cadence for the growing global community. Season 3 was bigger than Season 2, with higher peaks in daily active users. Within those seasons, in-game events are engaging players with content and challenges that show the imagination and creativity that we are continually pouring into the experience. We're also expanding the Apex universe with more ways to play and watch. We have plans to reach more platforms in FY21, and there's a lot of excitement in the esports community for the Apex Legends Global Series that is now underway. We're pleased to have Lenovo as an official sponsor for Apex Competitive Gaming, joining Gillette, Snickers, Pizza Hut, and other major brands and broadcast networks partnering with us on our esports portfolio. It's been a great year for EA Sports around the world. Madden NFL 20 and FIFA 20 are both demonstrating how exciting and fresh our sports games can be for new and established fans alike. Madden NFL 20 is our most successful game ever in the franchise, setting multiple records for player engagement and the highest net bookings through a holiday quarter. Our FIFA franchise also grew year over year in Q3. Bolsa Football brought an all-new dimension to FIFA 20 and the updates to FIFA Ultimate Team have been deeply engaging for fans with FUT matches up nearly 40% year-over-year from launch through Q3. FIFA 20 is also the number one most engaged title in our subscription services. We're now getting ready to launch two major additions to the FIFA 20 experience with the prestigious South American club tournaments, CONMEBOL Libertadores and CONMEBOL Sudamericana, as well as the eLibertadores, a new expansion to our FIFA 20 Global Series esports competitions. In addition to South America, Asia is another growth market for our FIFA franchise, with FIFA Online up significantly year-over-year in Q3. In other dimensions of our portfolio, we now have more than 20 million unique players worldwide in the Sims 4 life today. Our eighth expansion pack for the game, Discover University, continues to demonstrate the creative ways we can add to this experience for our amazing Sims community. as did the surprise edition of The Child from the Mandalorian series on Disney Plus just before the holidays. Meanwhile, PVZ Battle for Neighborville and Need for Speed Heat both brought fun and new experiences to fans around the world. Our people are our greatest resource at Electronic Arts, and this year has been a demonstration of how the creativity and technical expertise of our teams working together around the world allows us to deliver an unmatched breadth of entertainment to players. From FIFA to Star Wars, Apex to Madden, The Sims to Need for Speed and more, we have the titles that fans around the world recognize and love to play. The addition of great new games and experiences is also vital to growth, and we're excited to do that in the year ahead through more of our own IP, with partner and indie content, and some more surprises to come. Live services are delivering value for players and continuing growth for our business. Our teams are among the best in the industry at this, constantly building on feedback to expand and enhance the experience for players. With content updates and in-game events in Ultimate Team, creative and original new seasons in Apex Legends that expand the game and its characters, new content in The Sims 4 that continues to add player choice and more content across our top mobile titles around the world, live services will continue to be a key focus and growth driver for us in Q4 and the year ahead. With the strength of our IP and live services, we're well positioned for growth as the audience expands and diversifies into new forms of content. We are bringing our games and IP to new regions, including continued mobile growth in Asia and plans to launch Apex Legends in China. With our subscription services now available on three major platforms and coming to Steam in FY21, we're expanding our leadership in high-value, low-friction subscriptions for more players. And with FIFA and Madden continuing to grow as leading esports properties, we're bringing Apex Legends competitions to the global stage, and we have exciting plans for new content in esports as we move into the next fiscal year. We're looking forward to finishing this year strong, delivering for players, and continuing our growth into FY21. Now I'll hand the call over to Blake.