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Everywhere is a boomtown for Com2uS, but especially Europe and Asia

Korea is now the laggard

Everywhere is a boomtown for Com2uS, but especially Europe and Asia

As demonstrated by Com2uS' FY14 Q3 financials, a year can be a long time in the F2P mobile games industry.

Compared to the equivalent three month period 12 months ago, the Korean mobile developer and publisher - which is majority owned by Gamevil - saw its sales rise 102 percent and net profit up an amazing 3,165 percent.

Yet those figures mask an even more surprising turnaround.

Looking global

18 months ago, on the back of the rise of KakaoTalk as the dominant gaming platform in Korea, Com2uS saw its quarterly sales from its domestic Korean market peak at around $16.5 million.

In contrast, the company's international sales - at around $5-8 million - hadn't changed much quarter-on-quarter.

This was interesting as before the rise of Kakao in FY11 Q4 and FY12 Q1, the split of Com2uS' sales had been 51 percent from Korea to 49 percent international.

But by FY13 Q1 - which was the peak of its Korean sales - the split had become 77 percent domestic to 23 percent international.

Since that quarter, however, the situation has reversed so that now, 18 months later, Com2uS generated 80 percent of its sales outside of Korea, with the APAC region - notably Japan, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong - accounting for 60 percent of international sales.

Growth is happening everywhere

Or, put in another way, the APAC region now accounts for almost half of Com2uS' total sales, while APAC and Korea accounts for almost 70 percent of sales.

North America and Europe, which typically have been considered the lucrative market (as least in the west), are a static segment.

Everywhere's a boomtown

Yet this isn't to say that the rest of world isn't important for Com2uS, nor that Com2uS' sales in North America and Europe are growing fast too.

If we consider year-on-year growth, the situation is as follows.

  • South Korea sales - up 106 percent
  • Latin America/ROW sales - up 152 percent
  • North American sales - up 332 percent
  • European sales - up 1,599 percent
  • APAC sales - up 1,599 percent.

Alternatively, quarter-on-quarter growth is as follows.

  • South Korea - up 25 percent
  • North America - up 107 percent
  • APAC - up 134 percent
  • Europe - up 175 percent
  • LATAM - up 198 percent.

APAC is now Com2uS' largest single market

But let's not get too hung up on figures.

The broad conclusion to draw from Com2uS' recent financial performance is that on the back of two hit games Summoners War and Ace Fishing, the company has experienced massive growth everywhere.

And that growth has been particularly massive in Europe and Asia, not Korea and North America.

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.