Publisher Glu Mobile (NASDAQ:GLUU) has announced its Q3 figures for the three months ending 30 September 2011.

GAAP revenue was $16.9 million, up 9 percent year-on-year.

As expected, the company made a net loss of $6.2 million, compared to a loss of $1.6 million a year ago.

One reason for the large increase was the acquisition of Griptonite and Blammo Games in August 2011, which added 184 staff to the payroll.

CEO Niccolo de Masi said Glu should hit breakeven in early 2013, when those two studios will be fully up to speed.

Blammo's first game Stardom will be out in early 2012, but Griptonite's first games aren't due until mid 2012.

However, thanks to its two previous investment rounds, he didn't expect Glu to need to raise additional capital to reach breakeven.

Blammo-ing the numbers

Because of the way the Blammo deal is structured in terms of its potential earnout, which is based on Glu's share price, Glu prefers to focus on its non-GAAP figures, which strip out one-off costs to make year-on-year comparisons clearer.

Non-GAAP revenue for the quarter was $17.8 million, up 16 percent year-on-year.

The non-GAAP loss was $1.3 million, compared to a loss of $0.4 million a year ago.

Transition complete

In terms of how Glu's business is transitioning from paid feature phone games to freemium smartphone games, the latter now makes up the majority of Glu's sales: 57 percent of GAAP revenue.

This total of $9.7 million was up 306 percent year-on-year; 83 percent of the revenue was generated from IAP, advertising and offers, mainly on iOS.

Glu's biggest games remain Gun Bros., which has now generated $6.6 million since it was launched in December 2010, and Contract Killer, which has generated $4.3 million since its launch in March 2011. Contract Killer: Zombies is also said to be performing well.

Talking up Android

"We are pleased with our strong third quarter results, especially in our ability to maintain momentum in smartphone revenue growth and simultaneously expand gross margins," stated de Masi.

"Original IP accounted for more than half of total revenue for the first time in our history, which reflects the success of our product strategy. We believe that Glu is well positioned due to our strength on Android, combined with the leverage from our audience of over 22 million monthly active users."

In terms of its Q4 predictions, Glu expects non-GAAP revenue to be between $16 - 17 million, with a loss of between $5.7 - 6.6 million.

Glu ended the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $36.9 million.

[source: Glu Mobile IR (PDF)]