EA's Titanfall in Stores, Hits 52-Week High - Analyst Blog

Shares of Electronic Arts, Inc. EA attained a new 52-week high of $30.10 on Mar 12, 2014. The bullish run reflects strong growth expectation from Titanfall, which is now available at retail stores across North America.

The closing price of EA on March 13 was $29.98, which represented a strong one-year return of about 58.3% and a year-to-date return of about 31.3%.

Electronic Arts has delivered a positive earnings surprise of 290.7% over the past four quarters. This Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) stock has a market cap of $9.23 billion and long-term expected earnings growth rate of 16.7%.

Titanfall – A Key Growth Driver

Developed by Respawn Entertainment, Titanfall was launched in June, 2013. A first person shooter multiplayer video game, the game is available on Microsoft's MSFT Xbox One and on Origin.com for personal computers in the U.S. The game will be available in UK from March 14 onwards. The Xbox 360 version will be available from Mar 25, 2014.

Since its launch, the game has received rave reviews from critics and gamers. The game's availability on both old and new Xbox console is a significant positive. This will boost customer base and top-line growth going forward.

The success of Titanfall is important for EA after not-so-impressive performance of the last installments of Battlefield and Modern Warfare. A robust performance will help EA to face intensifying competition from the likes of Activision Blizzard ATVI and Take-Two Interactive TTWO going forward.

Estimate Revisions

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for the fourth quarter remained steady at 3 cents over the past 7 days. For fiscal 2014, the estimate has remained unchanged at 92 cents over the same time frame. For fiscal 2015, the earnings estimate has increased a penny to $1.20 per share over the same period.