Business booming at THQ

THQ have announced their second quarter financial results for the three months ending June 30th, with revenue and profits both up markedly compared to the same period last year. Revenues rocketed up by 70% to $55m, providing the California-based company with a net profit of $3.5m compared to a net loss of $2.7m in the second quarter of 2000. These results also show a big improvement over the previous three months, which saw a year-on-year decline in profits and revenue. At the time THQ commented that "the market outlook for the second half is encouraging", and today CEO Brian Farrell confirmed that "we continue to be optimistic about the rest of 2001". Judging from these figures they have every reason to be upbeat.

The arrival of the GameBoy Advance in America and Europe helped to boost THQ's results, with GT Advance Championship Racing one of the top ten launch titles on both continents. And the summer should prove even more profitable, with the GBA only just arriving in Europe at the tail end of the last quarter, and Volition's PlayStation 2 shooter Red Faction tearing up the American charts in the final week of June as well. Looking to the future, Brian said that "consumers' enthusiastic response to the new generation of video game hardware, including PlayStation 2 and Game Boy Advance as well as the soon-to-be-released Microsoft Xbox and Nintendo GameCube, sets the stage for the resurgent growth in the industry that has been widely anticipated to begin later this year".