Revenue for Japanese developer and publisher DeNA fell 11 per cent year-on-year to ¥124.1 billion ($1.13bn) in its 2018 financial year.

Sales for the company’s games segment, which makes up the largest portion of its revenue, dropped 15 per cent to ¥83.6bn ($763m).

Operating profit as a whole for the year fell 51 per cent to ¥13.5 billion ($123 million). Profits for the games division decreased by 27 per cent to ¥18.3 billion ($167m).

The drop was said to be in line with expectations, with the company’s focus on operating existing titles.

Confident about future prospects

Moving forward, the company plans to release Mario Kart Tour with Nintendo in the summer, while it’s also revealed a partnership with The Pokemon Company to release a new pokemon mobile game in 2020.

Its mid-term strategy for its games pipeline is to develop new titles that utilise major IP and make them global hits, rather than just successes in the local Japanese market.

DeNA has also announced a share buyback scheme through which it plans to repurchase 38 million shares, equal to 26.14 per cent of shares issued. It’s expected that these stocks will cost DeNA up to $456 million (¥50 billion).

“Although FY2018 game business revenue and operating profit declined year-over-year, we are confident about our future prospects and have announced a sizeable share buyback,” said DeNA president and CEO Isao Moriyasu.

“Going forward, we will launch and grow promising new titles in order to return the game business to growth. Our sports business continued to be solid, and our new business initiatives were on track. We will pursue further growth in the sports business as a core business segment, and investment in new businesses in FY2019."