Along with Candy Crush Saga publisher King, Finnish firm Supercell has been one of the biggest stars of the lucrative mobile games industry.
We covered its last set of financial results – €2.1bn revenues and an €848m net profit in 2015 from just three games – and compared them with some degree of trepidation to figures from the recorded-music space. What about 2016 though?
The wheels have hardly come off Supercell’s business, but after 36% growth in 2015, its sales stayed flat in 2016, with another €2.1bn year. That said, the profits of the Clash of Clans and Clash Royale publisher increased to €917m.
Its CEO was refreshingly blunt about the cause of the revenue flattening. “Pokémon Go came along in the summer and many of our players shifted there,” said Ilkka Paananen.
Supercell hopes to reignite growth now by acquiring other games firms and expanding in to China, including a WeChat integration. But it’s still worth noting the financial muscle of Supercell’s games: Clash Royale, which launched in early March 2016, had made $1.1bn by November according to analyst SuperData Research.
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