'Battlefield 3' premium service sells over 1.3 million subscriptions

The Battlefield 3 premium service sold over 1.3 million subscriptions, according to EA's financial results for Q1 of its current fiscal year.

The publisher adds its digital distribution platform Origin currently has over 21 million users, which includes 9 million mobile users. To date, this service signed agreements with 57 independent developers.

EA's catalogue continues to outperform expectations based on both Battlefield 3 and FIFA 13 selling over 2 million units in the first quarter, while re-orders for Madden 13 are up 25 percent year-over-year. In addition, FIFA Ultimate Team contributed over $30 million in net digital revenue during this quarter, while the firm's SimCity Social currently has over 10 million monthly active users.

EA's division of games and services for mobile phones and tablets together generated a 37 percent year-over-year increase in digital net revenue.

The firm also announced a $500 million share repurchase of EA's common stock. According to EA, net revenue of $491 million was in line with its guidance of $500 million for this quarter. In addition, net revenue in the Q1 fiscal 2013 was slightly slower when compared to the previous Q1 fiscal year due to a reduction in distribution revenue during this quarter.