Year-end report 2021
FOURTH QUARTER 2021
Revenues amounted to MSEK 390.5 (MSEK 433.7), a decrease by 10 % compared to the same period last year.
Operating profit amounted to MSEK 148.1 (MSEK 79.5), an increase by 86 %.
Profit after financial items amounted to MSEK 147.5 (MSEK 78.6), and profit after tax amounted to MSEK 115.9 (MSEK 59.5).
Cash flow from operating activities amounted to MSEK 269.2 (MSEK 387.1), and cash flow from investing activities amounted to MSEK -213.7 (MSEK -207.3).
By the end of the period cash amounted to MSEK 599.7 (MSEK 767.6).
Earnings per share before and after dilution amounted to SEK 1.10 (SEK 0.56).
Revenues in the quarter are mainly attributable to Cities: Skylines, Crusader Kings III, Europa Universalis IV, Hearts of Iron IV and Stellaris.
FULL YEAR 2021
Revenues amounted to MSEK 1,447.5 (MSEK 1,793.8), a decrease by 19 % compared to the same period last year.
Operating profit amounted to MSEK 307.5 (MSEK 632.1), a decrease by 51 %. Write-downs of MSEK 236.3 (MSEK 56.6) are included in the operating profit.
Profit after financial items amounted to MSEK 303.9 (MSEK 628.0), and profit after tax amounted to MSEK 247.8 (MSEK 490.6).
Earnings per share before dilution amounted to SEK 2.35 (SEK 4.65) and after dilution SEK 2.34 (SEK 4.64).
IMPORTANT EVENTS IN THE FOURTH QUARTER 2021
Surviving the Aftermath, developed by Iceflake Studios, left early access and was released in version 1.0.
New downloadable content for the following games was released during the quarter; Necroids Species Pack for Stellaris Console Edition, Origins for Europa Universalis IV, Make it Count for Empire of Sin, Aquatic Species Pack for Stellaris and No Step Back for Hearts of Iron IV.
The Group’s employees continue to work from home to reduce the spread of Covid-19.
AFTER THE END OF PERIOD
No significant events have occurred after the end of the period.
COMMENTS FROM THE CEO
A YEAR OF CHANGE
2021 has been a challenging year for Paradox. Too few content releases, too low quality on some of our releases and several discontinued projects leaves us with a full-year result that we are far from satisfied with. Our revenues and our profit before tax decrease compared to 2020, this is a trend-break that shall not continue.
We are a company that wants, and shall have, strong organic growth. The past year's challenges have helped us shift parts of the business onto a course that gives us the right preconditions for this. In the second half of the year, we have been able to implement many necessary changes to the project portfolio, to how we develop and invest in games, and to how we use our expertise and resources in the best way.
In the fourth quarter our efforts began to bear fruit. We are generally satisfied with the quality of our releases and the reception of No Step Back to Hearts of Iron IV and Aquatic Species Pack to Stellaris exceeded our expectations. Consequently, we perform a result for the last quarter of the year that shows that we are moving in the right direction. However, we still have a road ahead of us but it is a journey we look forward to.
Finding the way back to our core
Our overall focus has been on finding the way back to our core business. We have placed a special emphasis on increasing our content velocity and the quality of all content we release.
Organisationally, this has meant that we have clarified areas of responsibility and goals for all parts of the company in order to strengthen game development. We have evaluated our leadership training and are developing a new program to be able to give younger and less experienced leaders better support. In addition, we have increased cost control within the company with a special focus on how we use our marketing resources in the best way.
In game development, we have launched a number of initiatives that will help us increase quality and speed, and further improve the risk profile of our pipeline. For in-house developed games, we have ensured that decisions are made closer our games and our community in order to be able to identify problems earlier, increase quality, and become more agile. For externally developed games, we have reworked how we, going forward, invest in projects that are outside our core segments and how we collaborate with third-party developers. The investments will be monetarily smaller and managed by a dedicated team working outside the regular development organization. In parallel, we have reviewed the production process in order to be able to identify problems earlier and sharpen the focus of these collaborations. All in all, this means that we can act at a lower cost and with a lower risk while simultaneously enabling us to find new sources of revenue more efficiently.
I end the quarter and the year with both pride and gratitude. Proud that we were able to complete many of the changes at a higher pace than we first expected, and deeply grateful for the commitment from everyone at Paradox. In parallel with all the changes, we have been able to stably retain over 5 million monthly active players. This gives us a good speed into 2022 and makes me positive for the road ahead.
Fredrik Wester, CEO
Presentation of report
22 February 12:00 PM CET Fredrik Wester and Alexander Bricca will host a livestream on Paradox’s YouTube channel to present the quarter’s and the full year’s results, and answer questions related to the report and the company’s financial performance, https://www.youtube.com/paradoxinteractive.
Questions may be submitted in advance via our forum or by e-mailing them to ir@paradoxinteractive.com. It will be possible to e-mail questions to ir@paradoxinteractive.com during the presentation.
If you miss the presentation, it will be posted on Paradox’s YouTube channel at a later time.
This disclosure contains information that Paradox Interactive AB is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation (EU nr 596/2014). The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person, on 22-02-2022 08:00 CET.