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Strong growth for Gameloft in 2009
Territories covered
Western Europe
Austria,
Belgium,
Denmark,
Finland,
France,
Germany,
Greece,
Ireland,
Italy,
Netherlands,
Norway,
Portugal,
Spain,
Sweden,
Switzerland,
UK,
Central and Eastern Europe
Czech Republic,
Hungary,
Poland,
Russia,
Slovakia,
Slovenia,
North America
Canada,
USA,
South and Central America
Argentina,
Brazil,
Mexico,
Africa and Middle East
Turkey,
Asia-Pacific
India,
Japan,
South Korea,
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Published:
08-Feb-10
Leading French mobile games publisher Gameloft achieved revenues of 122m Euros in 2009, up 11 per cent from 110.3m Euros in 2008. Games for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch were the main drivers of this growth. Despite the impressive full year performance, Gameloft's Q4 2009 revenues declined 4 per cent on 2008, at 31.8m Euros compared with 33.8m Euros. Gameloft claims that this quarterly decline is due to its 2009 exit from the packaged games market and the drop in the value of the US dollar. On a like-for-like basis, it says fourth quarter sales were up 7 per cent in 2009.
Even more positive for Gameloft is its expected rise in profits, it expects its operating margin to increase from 3 per cent in 2008 to between 8 and 9 per cent in 2009.
Europe remains Gameloft's strongest market, accounting for 39 per cent of sales. North America made up 32 per cent of sales (up from 30 per cent in 2008), while sales in the Rest of the World accounted for the remaining 29 per cent (27 per cent in 2008).
Our take...
Screen Digest believes that Gameloft's improved performance in the Rest of the World is driven primarily by continued growth in its Japanese operations (where it has a strong distribution network) and improved sales in the Latin American market. Games for Apple's iPhone and iPod Touch have been the key drivers of its growth in the North American market. While Gameloft has achieved impressive growth in revenues and profitability in 2009, it is unlikely that its improved performance will see it overtake market leader EA Mobile, which Screen Digest estimates will see 2009 revenues pass $200m (143.8m Euros). Gameloft's performance is likely to see it consolidate its second placed position in the mobile games market, ahead of Glu Mobile and Namco. Gameloft's results illustrate the increasing importance of Apple's App Store to the mobile games market; in Q4 2009, Gameloft released 15 games for Apple's store, compared with just 10 operator distributed Java games. Gameloft's iPhone (and iPod Touch) games revenues accounted for 17.6m Euros in 2009 (and 4.4m Euros in Q4 2009).[
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Analyst intelligence & notices
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