What happened
Fewer than 24 hours after the stock of Electronic Arts (EA +0.04%) popped more than 5% on Monday in response to an upgrade from Merrill Lynch, it rose almost another 5% today. To be precise, it was up 4.7% as of 11:25 a.m. EST on Tuesday on news that its Apex Legends game is doing even better than previously expected.
So what
You may have heard that on Friday, EA reported that its new Apex Legends battle-royale video game had amassed 10 million players in its first 72 hours on the market. Get ready to update that number -- and maybe update it some more.
On Monday after close of trading, Electronic Arts announced that through its first seven days on the market, Apex Legends had grown its user base to more than 25 million players.
This news sparked a quick reaction on Wall Street, with analysts at Robert W. Baird -- who already liked the stock enough to rate it as outperform -- hiking their price target to $106 a share.
Check out the latest earnings call transcript for Electronic Arts.
Be afraid, Fortnite. EA's Apex Legends game is heating up. Image source: Epic Games.
Now what
If Apex Legends got 10 million players in its first three days, and passed 25 million players by Day 7, it appears to be growing faster the more time goes by.
Granted, a week of data is still a very small sample size by which to judge the success of Apex Legends. There's no guarantee that the game's growth won't hit a wall this week or next, or the week after that. Then again, even Epic Games' Fortnite took 40 days to pass 25 million users. Whatever happens next, by that yardstick at least, Apex Legends is already a greater success than Fortnite.
