News

Games industry M&A reaches record smashing $25 billion in July 2016

Playtika, King, and Supercell deals lead the way

Games industry M&A reaches record smashing $25 billion in July 2016

Games industry mergers and acquisitions have reached a record breaking $25 billion so far in 2016.

Digi-Capital reports that with the acquisition of Playtika by a Chinese consortium for $4.4 billion in July 2016, the total spent on M&A in a year is the highest it has ever been since 2014.

Big names, big numbers

Other major acquisitions, such as Tencent acquiring 84.3% of Supercell shares for $8.6 billion, and the acquisition of King by Activision Blizzard for $5.9 billion, which completed in February 2016, also contributed greatly to this total.

Digi-Capital suggested that if Vivendi were to make a move on acquiring Ubisoft by the end of 2016, this number could rise beyond $30 billion. This would more than double the previous record set in 2014.

Digi-Capital has forecasted that mobile games revenue growth will continue throughout the next few years, with the compound annual growth rate expected to rise from $35 billion in 2016 to $48 billion by 2020.

This compares to an expected decline for the console gaming and PC industry from $24 billion to $21 billion by 2020.

In light of this, Digi-Capital said that, despite the high costs of many of these deals, "it makes perfect sense" for these M&As to have occurred.

Despite this however, it anticpates the highest growth markets over the next few years will be AR, VR and eSports.

Editor

Ric is the Editor of PocketGamer.biz, having started out as a Staff Writer on the site back in 2015. He received an honourable mention in both the MCV and Develop 30 Under 30 lists in 2016 and refuses to let anyone forget about it.