Rumour: Alibaba to invest big in Com2uS

Rumours in the Korean mobile games market are suggesting that newly minted Chinese outfit Alibaba is about to make a big investment into Com2uS.

In many respects, such a deal wouldn't be a great surprise as even before its US IPO, Alibaba has been investing heavily in technology, including games.

For example, it dropped $120 million to get into US/Chinese F2P publisher Kabam in an aggressive move to gain traction with the fast-growing company that has strong presence in the west and which together with Alibaba is now looking to crack the Chinese market.

More recently, Alibaba invested $250 million in Chinese TV/film outfit Huayi Brothers; a deal made in conjunction with its arch-rival Tencent, and did a deal with Rovio over the Chinese launch of Angry Birds Stella.

It also spend $215 million investing in US mobile messaging service Tango.

Buying at the peak?

As for the attractiveness of Com2uS, it could be said that the Korean mobile publisher - which is particularly strong in the Asia Pacific region - has peaked, given that its most recent financials saw record quarterly revenue of $85 million and profit of $40 million.

And perhaps counting against the rumours is the issue that Com2uS is majority-owned by another Korean publisher Gamevil, which took a controlling stake in 2013.

Still, given the market share advantage of local rivals like Tencent, if Alibaba wants to make a real impact in the mobile games market, it is going to have to spend big and outside of China to make its presence felt.