Japanese game publisher Konami (TSE:9766) announced its financial figures for H1 FY12, the six months ending September 30.

Net revenues were up 6.3 percent year-on-year to ¥123 billion ($1.6 billion).

Net income was up 173 percent to ¥11.5 billion ($150 million).

Call me

Konami pointed to the strength of social mobile games on GREE and Mobage as the major factor behind its H1 2011 performance.

During the six months, Konami's revenue from SNS or social mobile games was ¥16.9 billion (around $220 million).

Significantly, this was equal to the amount Konami made from its consumer games business, and makes it the biggest mobile publisher in the world. 

In comparison, EA Mobile only posted sales of $230 million for its entire FY11 annual period.

Grin for GREE

The reason behind this is that Konami has the top 5 games on GREE (on 31 October at least), with its Dragon Collection having 4 million players. It's been the top ranking game on GREE for 50 weeks.

It was inducted into the GREE Hall of Fame and also presented with a special award in CESA's Japan Game Awards 2011.

In total, Konami has more than 11 million users across its social mobile games, with the performance of Sengoku Collection, Professional Baseball Dream Nine, and J.League Dream Eleven highlighted.

This is up from 9 million three months ago.

It's planning to build on this success, saying it will be focusing its resources and leveraging its production and operational know-how to expand its line up and meet the 'surging popularity' of the sector.

The splits

Konami's business is split between console games, pachinko slot machines, as well as a large health and fitness operation.

The biggest is the Digital Entertainment business segment, which includes console releases, mobile games, e-Amusement and card games.

It saw revenues up 9 percent to ¥58.1 billion (around $755 million), meaning SNS made up around 30 percent of its sales. 

Its operating income was ¥15 billion (around $195 million), up 226 percent year-on-year.

Cash out

Konami generated ¥7 billion (around $90 million) in terms of operational cash flow during H1, although experienced a net decrease of ¥5.6 billion (around $73 billion) due to financing and investing.

It ended the period with cash and cash equivalents of ¥46 billion ($704 million).

[source: Konami IR (PDFs 1/2)]