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Wind Runner's decline sees WeMade's Q1 2014 mobile sales down 33% to $19.3 million

Core up, but casual down more

Wind Runner's decline sees WeMade's Q1 2014 mobile sales down 33% to $19.3 million

Korean online and mobile publisher WeMade (KOSDAQ:112040) has announced its Q1 2014 financials, for the 3 months ending 31 March 2014.

Total revenue was $37.5 million, down 33 percent year-on-year.

Mobile revenues were $19.3 million, down 44 percent.

The company made operating loss of $10 million, mainly due to the decline in mobile sales.

Run like the wind again

In its core Korean market, WeMade said games such as Everytown  and Altan Story  (Heroes of Altan  in the west) had performed solidly.

And new mobile MMORPG Ark Sphere  launched well, generating around $5 million during quarter.

However, sales from its casual games - notably key title Wind Runner - declined.

Breakdown of WeMade's Q1 business by genre

The Korean market is highly dependent on the KakaoGame platform, which promotes casual games through the KakaoTalk mobile social network.

12 months ago, WeMade was very successful thanks to the popularity of Wind Runner  game on Kakao, and more recently it's been successful in Japan on the LINE platform. 

Revenues have since decline, although it will hope to repeat that success when it launches Wind Runner 2  in Q2.

Looking outward

WeMade also said it would be launching two games - Ark Sphere  and Puzzle Cat  - on its own Band Game mobile platform over the next three months.

More generally, it has seven titles due for release in Korea during Q2, while it will release a version of Altan Story  in Japan, and a version of Ark Sphere  in China.

Breakdown of WeMade's Q1 business by region

"WeMade is one of the few companies to successfully transform its publishing focus from PC online games to mobile games," said EVP, Won Il Sue.

"One of the most important goals for WeMade this year is to expand our global business,"

The company ended the period with cash and equivalents worth $126 million.

[source: WeMade IR PDF]

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.