Take-Two Jumps 5% After Earnings Beat, 29 Million 'Grand Theft Auto V' Units Sold

Shares of Take-Two Interactive TTWO are up more than five percent after the company announced its second-quarter results. The company reported a second-quarter EPS of $2.49 versus the Wall Street estimate of $1.64. Earnings per share were up 2.16 percent from the year-ago period. Revenue came in at $1.27 billion versus the Street estimate of $910.26 million. Sales were up 341 percent year-over-year. "During the fiscal second quarter, we delivered record Non-GAAP results driven by the unprecedented success of Rockstar Games' Grand Theft Auto V," Strauss Zelnick, Chairman and CEO of Take-Two, said in a company release. "The title received stellar reviews, shattered entertainment industry records, and has already sold-in nearly 29 million units to date. The extraordinary success of Grand Theft Auto V illustrates the positive momentum in our business and consumers' enduring appetite for the highest-quality interactive entertainment. "Take-Two has an extensive development pipeline of groundbreaking new intellectual properties and exciting titles from our proven franchises, along with digitally-delivered offerings to complement our core business. We currently have more than ten unique titles planned for next-generation consoles, including multiple releases slated for fiscal 2015. As a result, I am confident that we will be able to achieve Non-GAAP profitability in fiscal 2015 and every year for the foreseeable future." Year-to-date, Take-Two has been performing very well, rising more than 54 percent. The company was notably propelled by the release of Grand Theft Auto V, which provided the company with $800 million in revenue in just one day. By the end of its third day, Grand Theft Auto V had already earned more than $1 billion. Grand Theft Auto V is unique in that is the only major cross-platform game that is not getting a next-generation release. The game was developed exclusively for old hardware -- PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. By comparison, Call of Duty: Ghosts, Battlefield 4 and Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag -- which were also developed for old hardware -- will be released on Xbox One and PlayStation 4 when those consoles are released next month. Disclosure: At the time of this writing, Louis Bedigian had no position in the equities mentioned in this report. Louis Bedigian is the Senior Tech Analyst and Features Writer of Benzinga. You can reach him at louis(at)benzingapro(dot)com. Follow him @LouisBedigianBZ