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It's official: Puzzle & Dragons is the first mobile game to $1 billion in revenue

Makes up 91% of GungHo's $1.5 billion 2013 sales

It's official: Puzzle & Dragons is the first mobile game to $1 billion in revenue

Japanese game developer GungHo Online (TYO:3765) has announced its financials for its 2013 financial year, the period ending 31 December 2013.

Sales were up 530 percent to $1.5 billion (¥163 billion).

Similarly, net profits were up 570 percent to $520 million (¥54.7 billion)

Of course, while the company consists of console developers including Grasshopper, Gravity, Acquire and Game Arts, the main driver of this performance is its mobile title Puzzle & Dragons which generated 91 percent of the company's sales in 2013.

Mobile masterpiece

Breaking out that revenue, the company said it generated sales of $650 million through the Apple App Store and $775 million through Google Play.

On that basis Puzzle & Dragons is the first mobile game to officially generate more than $1 billion in sales.

The only competitor for the claim would be Supercell's Clash of Clans (ironically now owned by GungHo and SoftBank).

Although Clash of Clans was released earlier than Puzzle & Dragons, the latter was quicker into the top grossing charts and also quicker to be released on iOS and Android, likely giving it the advantage in terms of generating cash.

And it continues to do just that.

Although - as our Charticle points out - the game hasn't been a success in continental Europe, thanks to Japan and the US, GungHo Online also announced that in January 2014 it generated $155 million, suggesting Puzzle & Dragons is now making $4.5 million every single day.

[source: IndieNavi]


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.