Electronic Arts Inc.

Good afternoon. My name is Josh, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Electronic Arts First Quarter Fiscal Year 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Mr. Chris Evenden, Vice President, Investor Relations, you may begin your conference.

Thank you. Welcome to EA's First Quarter Fiscal 2023 Earnings Call. With me today are Andrew Wilson, our CEO, Chris Sir, our CFO, and Laura Miele, our COO. Please note that our SEC filings and our earnings release are available at ir.ea.com. In addition, we have posted detailed earnings slides to accompany our prepared remarks. Lastly, after the call, we will post our prepared remarks, an audio replay of this call, our financial model, and a transcript. With regards to our calendar, our Q2 fiscal 23 earnings call is scheduled for Tuesday, November 1st. As a reminder, we post the schedule of our entire fiscal year of upcoming earnings calls on our IR website. 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 10-K 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, August 2, 2022, 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 GAAP 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 turn the call over to Andrew. Thanks, Chris.

It's great to be here with you all. We delivered a strong performance across our business in Q1. Our broad IP portfolio, our amazing talent, and our growing network of players deeply engaged our live services all serve as unique structural advantages, especially as we navigate the fluidity of the macro environment. While we recognize there is more uncertainty in the market, our teams are focused on what they do best, delivering amazing games and services that keep our players engaged, connected, and inspired as we take entertainment and play to the next level. Our portfolio of sports and owned IP franchises continues to power resilience and longevity in our business. EA Sports and Racing is a growth center with franchises that are at the heart of how sports fandom is becoming increasingly interactive. F1 2022 sales are up double digits launch to date and the sport continues to boom, especially with younger fans. Our EA Sports FIFA franchise is exceptionally strong on a global basis with record business for Q1 in Asia, significant growth in mobile with DAUs up another 10% over last quarter and FUT engagement growing nearly 40% year-over-year, which is well above the industry average. We're going from strength to strength in EA Sports, including Madden NFL 23 just weeks away and our most expansive FIFA game ever coming this fall. Sports is the ultimate evergreen form of entertainment, and our new cross-media partnership with La Liga perfectly illustrates how we continue to innovate at the forefront of sport, media, and interactive content. With these multifaceted collaborations, we're able to bring the most authentic experiences to fans and expand into new ways to watch, create, compete, connect, and participate in sport across platforms, business models, and geographies. Our own IP franchises are some of the most deeply engaging and culturally relevant entertainment properties in the world. Apex Legends is a leading multi-platform franchise. with our live service on console and PC driving massive ongoing engagement and a new mobile game that is delivering on our early expectations. Engagement in our Sims franchise is also outperforming the market with content that resonates for a broad and diverse audience. We have a proven ability to grow successful long-term live services across our portfolio with ongoing engagement that drives resiliency, recurring revenue, and lifetime value for our business. Through all of these experiences, our large global network has grown to nearly 600 million. Every day, our players are forging new friendships and social connections. And with the scale of our network and our team's ability to utilize our data, we can understand where, how, and what our audiences are playing today and where they want to go next. We continue to see Gen Alpha and Gen Z turning to games as their primary form of entertainment, consuming more content than any generation of the past. They love playing with friends, they stay connected with family, and they're creating content at every turn, both in and around their entire gaming experience. Whether they play games from our expansive EA Sports portfolio to fuel their fandom, enjoy the intensity and competition of Apex Legends, or seek adventure in games such as Star Wars Jedi, the next generations of consumers use the power of play to fully immerse and express themselves. to build deeper, more meaningful connections with the communities they identify with and where they feel they belong. They're using games like The Sims to unleash their personal and creative autonomy, building characters and new stories with their friends. Delivering games that fuel creativity where players can join, compete and interact with each other through social and immersive experiences is an exciting growth lever for Electronic Arts as we continue to expand and diversify our portfolio and build global online communities spanning more geographies. Games are the social networks of the future. Leading in this highly competitive market requires a strong focus on people. We continue to invest in our culture and in fueling our talent pipeline. The best character artists, animators, graphic designers, data scientists, engineers, and many more talented creators are all joining our team to level up their careers with award-winning franchises and studios. From career development and wellness programs to workplace experiences and technology that inspires collaboration and innovation, we strive to make electronic arts a great place to work and grow. Through our IP, our talent, and our growing network of players, we are adding strength and long-term value to our business. Even with short-term uncertainties, interactive entertainment will continue to evolve and grow, and we are in a very strong position. Now I'll turn the call over to Chris. Thanks, Andrew.