Electronic Arts (NMS: ERTS) has revealed that its EA Mobile division generated $48 million of GAAP revenues in Q3 2008, up 23 per cent year-on-year.

The information was published in the company's latest set of quarterly financials.

That's decent growth, although the Q3 revenues were only up 2 per cent sequentially from Q2's $47 million. In Q3, mobile accounted for 3 per cent of EA's overall revenues - unsurprising given that the Christmas is the strongest of the year for console game sales.

By contrast, EA's closest mobile rival Gameloft generated €33.8 million of revenues during the same period (around $43.5 million) - growth of 31 per cent year-on-year. Some of those revenues were from console and handheld sales however.

EDIT - EA has contacted PocketGamer.biz to say that it prefers to be judged on its non-GAAP figures, which reported $50 million of wireless revenues for Q3 2008 - up 28 per cent year-on-year.

The difference between the two - Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and non-GAAP - is non-GAAP is used to strip out one-off costs (and income) to try and make year-on-year comparisons easier.

In this case, the difference between the two appears to be due to how EA deals with the deferral of revenue from some sources of digital distribution.

Meanwhile, EA reported overall GAAP net revenues of $1.65 billion for Q3, up 10 per cent year-on-year. However, the publisher posted a GAAP net loss for the quarter of $641 million, compared to its $33 million loss in Q3 2007. In part, this was due to $612 million in write-downs over goodwill and tax asssets.

And that whopping loss included an estimated pre-tax goodwill impairment charge of $368 million directly related to EA's wireless business.

For the record, EA's corresponding non-GAAP figures for Q3 were $1.74 billion of revenues, and $179 million of net income.

Meanwhile, EA announced that it's making more layoffs than previously announced. 1,100 staff are now going - around 11 per cent of the company's workforce at a cost of around $75 million. However, it hopes to save around $500 million next year thanks to its restructuring i.e. sacking staff, shutting offices and canning games.

EA Mobile has had an unsettled few months, particularly in Europe, with the departure of European marketing director Tim Harrison, and the announcement that VP of European publishing Javier Ferreira is following him out of the door.