Chinese operator, developer, and publisher NetEase posted its Q1 2017 financial report this week, and the news is quite good for the company. NetEase made $2 billion in revenue during the quarter, out of which $1.6 billion can be attributed to game sales. This marks an astonishing 78% increase from Q1 2016 and sent U.S. stocks of the company up 3.6% this past Wednesday.
The end result? NetEase is enjoying nearly $570 million in profit thanks to its performance.
NetEase operates many of Blizzard’s games in China and has its own line of mobile and PC games. It attributed its Q1 success to the launch and huge popularity of Onmyoji in Japan, the release of several new mobile titles, and the juggernaut that is Hearthstone. The report singled out the latter for praise: “Achieved record number of quarterly active users for Blizzard Entertainment’s Hearthstone.”
NetEase CEO William Ding discussed the positive news, saying, “Our strong first quarter results were led by our self-developed mobile games as we continued to bring innovative content to our massive audience […] The Company continues to introduce popular games that enrich the online game market in China, and initiated closed beta testing for Minecraft in April. We are also actively expanding our international footprint by bringing hit titles such as Onmyoji and Land of Glory to global audiences.”
