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Snapshot of Japanese mobile game company financials

Marking mobile gamings winners and losers

Snapshot of Japanese mobile game company financials

Given the size of the mobile games industry, it's no surprise that many companies have sufficient scale and/or growth to be able to float themselves on various stock markets around the world.

And that means every three months, we get a deluge of financial information concerning their sales over the previous quarter.

It's a lot of information and sometimes difficult to place into context, so we've come up with this handy list format, which highlights a company's performance during the past quarter.

In this case, we're covering the Japanese mobile game market. 

Companies on this list - arranged in rough revenue size order - are


Click here to view the list »
  • 1 DeNA Co.,Ltd.

    DeNA Co.,Ltd. logo

    "In the third quarter, the revenue from our game business saw a quarter-on-quarter increase with significant contribution from our native apps," said president and CEO Isao Moriyasu.

    "In Japan, we have an exciting lineup of new native app titles in the pipeline. Premium IP titles in China and other new titles overseas are off to a good start, and we will make investments to turn them into big hits."

    Last quarter revenues: $287 million (Â¥34b)
    Change quarter-on-quarter: down 4 percent
    Change year-on-year: down 17 percent year-on-year

    Mobile game revenues as % of total sales: 84 percent
    Percentage of last quarter sales from Japan: 87 percent

    Last quarter operating profit: $43 million (Â¥5.2b)
    Change quarter-on-quarter: down 33 percent
    Change year-on-year: down 55 percent year-on-year

    Trailing 12 month mobile game revenues: $1 billion

    Current cash and equivalent: $1 billion

    Market cap: $1.7 billion
    Stock exchange ticker:
    TYO:2432

    Key metrics during period:

    • Coin consumption grew quarter-on-quarter to 37.8 billion yen
    • International coin consumption was over $35 million
    • Final Fantasy Record Keeper had 5 million downloads and hit top ten grossing charts in Japan

    [Last updated: 6 February 2015]


  • 2 GREE

    GREE logo

    Last quarter revenues: $201 million (FY15 Q2)
    Change quarter-on-quarter: down 1 percent
    Change year-on-year: down 9 percent

    Last quarter loss: $64 million
    Change quarter-on-quarter: n/a
    Change year-on-year: n/a

    Trailing 12 month mobile game revenues: $895 million

    Current cash and equivalent: $620 million

    Market cap: $1.3 billion
    Stock exchange ticker: TYO:3632

    Key metrics during period:

    • Full FY15 sales are expected to be around $820 million.
    • During the quarter, GREE wrote off $75 million of goodwill from its OpenFeint acquisition.
    • It also wrote of $78 million of goodwill from its Pokelabo acquisition.
    • GREE made a gain of $59 million by selling its stake in Japanese publisher Gumi Inc.

    [Last updated: 2015]

  • 3 CyberAgent

    CyberAgent logo

    Q1 FY15 game revenues: $119 million
    Change quarter-on-quarter: up 4 percent
    Change year-on-year: up 26 percent

    Last quarter game operating profit: $29 million
    Change quarter-on-quarter: up 7 percent
    Change year-on-year: up 70 percent.

    Trailing 12 month mobile game revenues: $446 million

    Last quarter mobile revenues as % of total sales: 22 percent
    Current cash and equivalent: $228 million

    Staff headcount: 3,168, of which 703 work in games
    Market cap: $3 billion
    Stock exchange ticker: TYO:4751

    Key metrics during period:

    • Granblue Fantasy was the 5th top grossing iPhone game on 1 January 2015.
    • Full year operating profit generated by games business expected to grow 39 percent to $75 million (Â¥9 billion).

    [Last updated: 30 January 2015]


  • 4 Nexon

    Nexon logo

    Last quarter mobile game revenues: $88 million (FY14 Q3)
    Change quarter-on-quarter: up 15 percent
    Change year-on-year: up 41 percent

    Last quarter net income: $124 million (for all Nexon)
    Change year-on-year: up 69 percent

    Trailing 12 month mobile game revenues: $304 million

    Last quarter mobile revenues as % of total sales: 21 percent
    Current cash and equivalent: $1 billion

    Market cap: $4.2 billion
    Stock exchange ticker: TYO:3659

    Key metrics during period:

    • Sales from native games were up 50 percent quarter-on-quarter and now account for around half of Nexon's mobile revenues.
    • Legion of Heroes for Kakao has received 4 million downloads.
    • Revenue in Japan declined 7 percent quarter-on-quarter or 14 percent year-on-year.

    [Last updated: 14 November 2014]


  • 5 Sega Networks

    Sega Networks logo

    Sega Networks is the F2P mobile division of Sega Sammy.

    FY14 revenues: $202 million (Â¥20.9 billion)
    Change year-on-year: up 487 percent

    FY14 Q4 revenues: $76 million (Â¥7.8 billion)
    Change quarter-on-quarter: up 16 percent
    Change year-on-year: 388 percent

    Market cap: $4.1 billion (Sega Sammy)
    Stock exchange ticker: TYO: 6460

    Key metrics during period:

    • Chain Chronicles now operating at an annualised revenue rate of $100 million.
    • Puyopuyo! Quest generating around $5 million per month.
    • Five games generating over $1 million a month.
    • Six doing around $500,000 a month.
    • At current growth rate, by mid-FY15, Sega Networks will account for 50 percent of all of Sega Sammy's digital business.

    [Last updated: 30 May 2014]

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.