Or could GM’s move be, as some insiders are theorizing, a result of Google recognizing the advertising competition with Facebook and luring companies away, perhaps with the promise of free ads? Either way, it’s a significant loss for Facebook. But is it really about just Facebook ads and GM?
Source: Social Media Today – The world’s best thinkers on social media
Million
Free-to-play game giant Nexon posted better than expected results in its Q1 2012 earnings report last week, reporting revenues of 30.3 billion yen ($ 379.5 million), up 46 percent year-on-year and 37 percent quarter-over-quarter. Net income climbed 60 percent year-on-year to 12.3 billion yen ($ 154 million).
Nexon credited its earnings to strong performance in China, where revenue increased 89 percent year-on-year to 15.1 billion yen ($ 189.1 million) and accounted for 49.8 percent of Nexon’s total revenue for the quarter. The company’s North American revenue was the only anomaly among the report, declining 19 percent year-on-year to 1.3 billion yen ($ 16.2 million). Nexon blamed the decline on a hacking attack and ongoing stability issues.
The company highlighted the strong performance of several new titles, including Cyphers, Mabinogi Heros and the mobile version of its classic Kartrider Franchise, Kartrider Rush. According to Nexon’s earnings report the free-to-play racing game has been downloaded more than 8.2 million times to date between iOS and Android.
Nexon’s monthly active users declined 3.9 percent year-on-year to 82.8 million, but were up 3.5 percent over the company’s Q4 2011 total of 80 million MAU. Nexon also reported 10.9 percent of users paid in Q1 2012, up from the 8.3 percent of paying users the company reported in Q1 2011. Average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) increased to 1,761 yen ($ 22.05) in Q1 2012, up from 1,427 yen ($ 17.87) ARPPU in the same period a year ago.
Based on its strong performance during the quarter, Nexon is raising its guidance for the 2012 fiscal year. The company is predicting full-year revenues of 108.3 billion yen ($ 1.35 billion) up 24 percent year-on-year. Net income is expected to hit 37.8 billion yen ($ 473.4 million) for the full fiscal year.
Originally a Korean company, Nexon raised $ 1.17 billion when it made its initial public offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange last year. The company’s market cap is currently $ 7.8 billion — higher than both EA’s ($ 4.77 billion) and Zynga’s ($ 5.86 billion). The free-to-play giant is the latest publicly traded Japanese game company to report record revenues, following bumper earnings reports from DeNA and GREE, both of which reported net sales in excess of $ 500 million for the most recent quarter.
Source: Inside Social Games
Japanese mobile social game network GREE has bought Funzio, the developer behind the popular mid-core mobile and social games Crime City, Kingdom Age and Modern War. According to a GREE spokesperson, the deal was worth $ 210 million.
As part of the deal Funzio’s CEO Ken Chiu and COO Anil Dharni will join GREE as senior vice presidents. Funzio’s CTO Ram Gudavalli and VP of engineering Andy Keidel will become vice presidents at GREE.
The acquisition is GREE’s biggest since April 2011, when the company bought OpenFeint for $ 104 million in order to bring its lucrative mobile social gaming network to North America.
Read the rest on our sister site, Inside Mobile Apps.
Source: Inside Social Games
There are now more than 42 million Facebook pages and 9 million Facebook apps, according to a recent amendment to the social network’s filing for an initial public offering.
The number of pages on Facebook with 10 or more Likes has increased by 5 million since Dec. 31, 2011, and the number of apps and websites that integrate Facebook are up by 2 million since that date. These new totals show that Facebook’s platform continues to grow in ways beyond new users. It also shows just how much is competing for users’ attention these days.
Facebook did not provide a category breakdown of the 42 million pages on Facebook. However, in a letter to prospective investors, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg shared that more than 4 million businesses have pages on the site. Other pages on the social network — including many of the most popular ones — are pages for popular figures, movies and sports teams. A large proportion of pages are also likely to be fan-generated community pages. Unclaimed locations also account for some of these pages, although Facebook has been working to eliminate duplicates.
The number of apps and websites connected to Facebook is likely to quickly grow past 9 million. With Open Graph integration proving to be a large source of traffic for third-party apps and websites, we can expect many more blogs and media sites, as well as mobile games and other apps to implement aspects of the platform
Along with stats about pages and apps, Facebook provided other updated figures for photo uploads, interactions and friend connections in its filing this week. Between Jan. 1 and March 31, there were more than 300 million photos uploaded to the site each day — up from 250 million per day in Q4 2011. Users also generated an average 3.2 billion Likes and comments each day in the first quarter of 2012 — up from 2.7 billion per day in Q4 2011. And Facebook now has more than 125 billion friend connections between its 901 million monthly active users.
Source: Inside Facebook
A new SEC filing has revealed Wednesday’s acquisition of Draw Something developer OMGPOP cost Zynga $ 180 million, confirming it as the most expensive deal in Zynga’s history.
According to the filing:
In March 2012, we acquired OMGPOP, Inc. for purchase consideration of approximately $ 180 million. We believe that our existing cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, together with cash generated from operations, will be sufficient to fund our operations and capital expenditures for at least the next 12 months.
While it was speculated that OMGPOP’s acquisition would include a $ 30 million earnout, but the SEC filing doesn’t include any references to any payments above the $ 180 million already noted. Zynga’s most expensive acquisition prior to OMGPOP was Words With Friends developer Newtoy, for which it paid $ 53 million.
The filing also revealed that Zynga shareholders are planning to sell almost 43 million shares. Zynga confirmed this secondary offering last week, and it revealed that the stock will be split into three tiers. Class A stock will have the lowest voting power, while Class B and C stocks will hold 96.9 percent of shareholder voting power.
Source: Inside Social Games
Zynga’s acquisition of Draw Something maker Omgpop cost $ 180 million that will come from the secondary stock offering.
This data came to light today in an amendment that Zynga filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The filing also revealed that Zynga shareholders will sell almost 43 million shares, including 16.5 million shares held by Chief Executive Officer Mark Pincus. The sale of Pincus’ shares, worth around $ 227 million, would lower his voting power to 35.9 percent from 36.5 percent.
Other sellers of shares include:
- Institutional Venture Partners;
- Union Square Ventures;
- Google;
- Zynga’s former Executive Vice President of Business Development Owen Van Natta;
- Reginald D. Davis, and
- LinkedIn Chief Executive Officer Reid Hoffman.
The amendment also includes some details about diversification of revenue: Zynga’s top three games accounted for 57 percent of the company’s revenues during 2011, down from 83 percent in 2009.
Source: All Facebook
