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Troubles in Japan and the West as DeNA sees FY14 Q3 revenue slide 20% to $408 million

Platform approach is creaking

Troubles in Japan and the West as DeNA sees FY14 Q3 revenue slide 20% to $408 million

Japanese mobile gaming company DeNA (TYO:2432), has announced its Q3 2014 figures for the 3 months ending 31 December 2013.

Revenue was $408 million (¥41.7 billion), down 20 percent year-on-year.

Operating profit was $112 million (¥11.4 billion), down 42 percent.

Smaller in Japan

Significantly for the company, consumption of its platform-wide MobaCoin virtual currency was down for both first-party and third-party games in Japan - around 11 percent. 

As noted in our Monetizer column, this is perhaps because DeNA uses the same fixed IAP economy across all games on the platform, meaning individual developers can't be flexible in terms of IAP retailing.

Also, DeNA's core Japanese market has been hit by the transition from simple mobile browser games such as card-battlers to native smartphone games.

For that reason, MobaCoin consumption in Japan has been falling for over 18 months.

Mixed messages

There were some brighter areas for the company, however.

DeNA West generated more than $60 million in MobaCoin consumption during the period, although this is down from its peak of $80 million.

For that reason, losses in the west grew during Q3. The division has 10 new titles planned for release in 2014.

Still, Mobage Greater China had a top grossing hit with NBA: My Dream in the country.

Jam tomorrow

"DeNA is committed to its large-scale game production strategy for both the app and browser markets," said Isao Moriyasu, president and CEO.

"By establishing improved development processes, we have scaled our ability to deliver numerous high-quality games each quarter. We're seeing encouraging signs from many of our games and new services in the mobile app market, and it remains an exciting opportunity for growth for our company."

The company ended the quarter with cash and equivalents worth $565 million.

[source: DeNA IR]

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.