Once again, mobile games is the place to be ... especially if you are based in Europe
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...161044024.html
CANDY CRUSH SAGA Maker King PLC Pulls in $5,150,684.93 A DAY in 2013, Files for IPO Valuing Company at ~$10 BILLION
The company has posted enormous growth in a few short years. In 2013, the company reported a profit of $567.6 million, up from $7.8 million in 2012. Revenue jumped to $1.88 billion, up from $164.4 million. It's IPO is expected to value the company at as much as $10 billion.
By SVEN GRUNDBERG, TELIS DEMOS and BEN FOX RUBIN CONNECT
Updated Feb. 18, 2014 10:41 a.m. ET
King Digital Entertainment PLC, the maker of the popular "Candy Crush Saga" smartphone game, said Tuesday that it filed for an initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange.
The company hasn't yet decided on an IPO price or stock-market valuation, people familiar with the matter said. But the company is aiming for a multiple of earnings on par with gaming companies such as Electronic Arts Inc. and Activision Blizzard Inc., a person familiar with King's thinking said. That could peg the company at roughly $8 billion to $10 billion, depending on what investors predict for next year's earnings.
King intends to apply to list on the NYSE under the symbol "KING."
King, with offices in London and Stockholm, has risen to prominence amid the rapid rise of phone-based games for Apple Inc.'s iPhone and phones running Google Inc. 's Android operating system.
King is best known for it hugely popular and profitable Candy Crush game, which was launched on Facebook Inc. in April 2012. The game has been leading top-grossing games charts and has been one of the most frequently downloaded free apps from the iPhone's App Store and Google's Play.
The company said it intends to allow some of its shareholders to sell into the IPO, according to the filing. About half of the company is owned by Apax Partners, a European private-equity firm, and 10% by Riccardo Zacconi, co-founder and chief executive. Another 8% is held by venture-capital firm Index Ventures.
In its filing, King said the company has posted enormous growth in a few short years. In 2013, the company reported a profit of $567.6 million, up from $7.8 million in 2012. Revenue jumped to $1.88 billion, up from $164.4 million.
King Digital, the company behind the wildly popular mobile game Candy Crush Saga has filed its IPO papers, but before it can clear the jelly off the board and move on to the next level, it's going to have convince investors that it isn't just Zynga 2.0. Telis Demos reports on MoneyBeat. Photo: King.com.
By comparison, Zynga Inc., another top games maker, had revenue last year of $873 million, while Finland's Supercell Oy reported revenue of $892 million. In October, Japan's SoftBank Corp. bought a 51% stake in Supercell for $1.5 billion, the largest-ever investment in a mobile game company.
King, founded in 2002, has been around longer than both Zynga and Supercell. Candy Crush—a colorful and addictive puzzle game that reaps revenue from in-game "power-ups"—is being played by 93 million people every day, and is played more than a billion times every day, King said in its filing.
King said its mobile games have been installed 500 million times in total, from the launch of its first mobile game, "Bubble Witch Saga," which it released for mobile phones in the summer of 2012.
The big question: How sustainable is that growth?
Overshadowing any King IPO will be the Zynga's experience, which listed in 2011. Zynga shares have performed poorly since their debut, falling more than 50%, as investors question whether it will be able to reliably produce hit games for mobile devices like it previously did for Facebook.
The company's revenues fell over the course of 2013, and the company has been posting losses for three years straight.
King will likely face investor questions about what differentiates it from Zynga, and how it can continue to match the fickle tastes of mobile gamers.
In its filing, King acknowledged "a small number of games currently generate a substantial majority of our revenue." Specifically, in the fourth quarter of 2013, its top three games—Candy Crush, "Pet Rescue Saga" and "Farm Heroes Saga"—accounted for 95% of its total gross bookings, it said. Candy Crush, in particular, accounted for 78% of its total gross bookings.
"If the gross bookings of our top games, including Candy Crush Saga, are lower than anticipated and we are unable to broaden our portfolio of games or increase gross bookings from those games, we won't be able to maintain or grow our revenue, and our financial results could be adversely affected," the company said in its filing.
Though hit titles can be fleeting, the mobile gaming business still offers significant opportunity. Mobile and tablet games globally were estimated to have produced revenue of $12.2 billion last year, according to EMarketer Inc., a market research service. That would be a 34% jump from 2012.
And recently, King showed it is no one-hit wonder. Last year, it launched a new game, "Papa Pear Saga," that joined Candy Crush in the 10 most-downloaded apps for Apple devices in December, according to AppAnnie, which tracks app downloads and revenues.
King said it chose J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Credit Suisse Group AG and Bank of America Merrill Lynch to take top roles in the IPO.
It remains to be seen but they basically have just one game...with a few different spin-offs. Unless they can come up with some new games that are just as popular they will leave a lot of investors out in the cold
that makes me sick