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Flexion Q4 financials close with another record quarter

The alternative app store publisher saw major deals in 2022

Flexion Q4 financials close with another record quarter

Alternative app-store publisher Flexion has released its Q4 financials for the end of December 2022 and reported a revenue increase of 108% to £21.7m ($26.6m).

Flexion, who publish games to alternative app stores like the Huawei Appgallery and Amazon App Store, increased their gross profit by 147% to £3.7m ($4.5m) while adjusted profit before tax was at £1.1m ($1.3m) and EBITDA was £1.6m ($1.9m). This marks a significant increase from their previous quarterly financials in the 2021 December period and comes off the back of a number of large deals such as the publishing of the Hill Climb Racing franchise by Fingersoft and Vikingard for NetEase games.

CEO of Flexion, Jens Lauritzson was remarkably positive about Flexion’s performance going into 2023 and the potential he saw there. He described the quarter in positive terms, especially looking forward. “The strong Q4 performance came on the back of a gaming market that is experiencing a temporary slowdown in growth and margins, partly due to a structural change for paid user acquisition triggered by Apple’s privacy policy. Flexion sailed unaffected through this turbulent period and we are seeing growth in all areas of the business.

“This makes me very bullish about the future. While everyone is talking about reducing staff and overheads due to weaker performance, we see an opportunity to accelerate growth and attract key talent, while investing in new business areas and making new acquisitions”

Climbing that hill with Vikings

Flexion stands in an unusual position due to their unique business model. At a time when the rest of the mobile gaming industry is experiencing a slump, Flexion’s model of publishing to alternative app stores represents a relatively cheap and easy way for developers to expand the reach of their games. Their report of a 12x revenue boost to Evony: The King’s Return when they began publishing it on alternative storefronts was discussed when we spoke to Jens Lauritzson about his view on why developers should consider alternative app stores.

The outside circumstances have certainly been rough for some, with bank collapses and more causing uncertainty across many industries. However, Flexion was very positive regarding the after-effects of the SVB (Silicon Valley Bank Collapse) in particular in their investor Q&A Lauritzson noted, “For some time now, our policy has been to keep cash in two separate global banks, and we are not affected by this development. However, indirectly, it improves our position as the impending cash squeeze in tech should provide opportunities for growth companies like us with strong cash positions.”


Staff Writer

Iwan is a Cardiff-based freelance writer, who joined the Pocket Gamer Biz site fresh-faced from University before moving to the Pocketgamer.com editorial team in November of 2023.