EIDOS ADJUSTS FORECAST PROJECTIONS
Copyright 2009 Eidos plc Press Release

[ January 9th 2009 ]

Eidos plc is today providing an update to the market on its trading performance over the Christmas period. Tomb Raider: Underworld was released on the major gaming platforms on 18 November 2008 in North America and 21 November 2008 in the rest of the world.

We are pleased that in our key European territories the game charted in the Top 10 for the 6 weeks from launch to Christmas* and performed well against both competitive products and recent iterations of the franchise.

However, on a global basis our sell through to 31 December, which we estimate at approximately 1.5 million units, is below our internal forecasts, primarily due to a lower start in North America. In a difficult North American economy we have seen retailers restricting inventory levels and triple-A products being price discounted above our expectation.

Consequently as we enter the second half of our financial year we are cautious about the potential for ongoing price discounting. We have therefore revised our sales assumptions for Tomb Raider: Underworld and other products to be released and estimate our full year revenue will now be in the range of £160m-£180m compared to our previous guidance of £180m-£200m.

We have passed our peak net debt position and we retain sufficient headroom within our committed banking facility but given revised profit expectations we may need to enter into discussions with our lending bank regarding our June 2009 covenants.

We believe our strategy of focusing on cornerstone franchises is further validated by the current challenging and competitive environment. We are concentrating our efforts and resources on those high quality titles that will deliver long-term franchise value while pro-actively managing our cost base and exploring ways to improve the mechanics of the business.

Looking further into our 2009 financial year, we are encouraged by the positive reaction to our forthcoming Batman: Arkham Asylum videogame. We are working closely with DC Comics and Warner Bros. and through our strategic partnership we are benefitting from cross-promotional opportunities including the first video trailer for Batman: Arkham Asylum featured on all DVDs of the movie The Dark Knight this Christmas.

Copyright (c) 2000 - 2024 tombraiderchronicles.com
tombraiderchronicles.com is not owned or operated by CDE Entertainment Ltd.
Lara Croft and Tomb Raider are trademarks of CDE Entertainment Ltd.
Materials in this web site are trademarked and copyrighted properties of their respective owners.