Perfect World Q4 and FY2012: downturn partially offset by Torchlight 2

Star Trek Online, Champions Online and Torchlight publisher Perfect World Entertainment has posted its fourth quarter and fiscal year results for FY2012, noting a year-on-year and quarterly downturn.

For the fourth quarter, Perfect World saw revenue of RMB ¥679.9 million ($109.1 million). That's a decrease from both the RMB ¥695.8 million of the third quarter and the RMB ¥776.4 million of the same quarter one year ago.

Of this total, online games accounted for 88%, or RMB ¥599.7 million ($96.3 million), down from RMB ¥608.2 million in the third quarter and RMB ¥706.9 million year-on-year.

Chinese concurrent users increased from an average of 620,000, up from 601,000 in the previous quarter but well down from the 873,000 of a year ago.

Perfect World made RMB ¥36.5 million ($5.9 million) from licensing, again a drop both quarterly and yearly, and RMB ¥43.7 million ($7.0 million) from other sources, most of which was down to the publication of Torchlight 2.

Overall, the company made a quarterly operating profit of just RMB ¥12.4 million, barely a hiccup compared to the RMB ¥109.4 million of the quarter before and the RMB ¥220.2 million of Q4 FY2011.

For the year total, things were less grim. Overall revenue for FY2012 was RMB ¥2.7 billion ($444.7 million), down from RMB ¥2.9 billion in FY11.

Online game revenue fell to RMB ¥2.4 billion ($401.2 million) from RMB ¥2.7 billion. Licensing revenue was RMB ¥171.6 million ($27.5 million), down from RMB ¥246.8 million, and other revenues were RMB ¥99.6 million ($16.0 million), well up on FY11's RMB ¥28.1 million in fiscal year 2011, again thanks to Torchlight 2 sales.

The company secured operation profit of RMB ¥511.8 million ($82.1 million) for the year total, down from RMB ¥1 billion in FY11.

Perfect World accounted its more kodest performance to having fewer titles developed in China ready for launch in the west, as well as decreasing license fees from international markets.