Russian Internet giant Mail.Ru Group reported for July-September. The company earned $270 million (17 billion rubles) during this period. Almost a third of this amount came from games (5.7 billion rubles).
Pathfinder: Kingmaker
To begin with, we will output the main numbers in a list:
- the annual growth of gaming earnings in Q3 was 31%;
- quarterly growth is insignificant (plus 400 million rubles);
- 64% of gaming revenue comes from foreign markets;
- The main sales drivers are: War Robots, Warface, Hustle Castle and Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
Now about the numbers in detail.
Dynamics of indicators
Compared to July-September of last year Mail.Ru Group earned 31% more on games. The company itself notes that this is a good dynamic, but it is significantly less than last year.
Recall that the annual quarterly growth of its gaming business in 2017 was 83%. The company explains the decline in dynamics by the “high base effect” (low growth rates with high starting indicators).
By the way, the difference with revenue for the second quarter of this year turned out to be insignificant. In May-July, the company generated 5.3 billion rubles against the current 5.7 billion.
Markets
Of the $86.7 million earned from the games, most came from the Western market. The share of the latter reached 64%. At the same time, the largest market for games Mail.Ru The group outside of Russia became the USA.
In general, the share of international gaming revenue in the company’s total revenue for the quarter was 21%. Therefore, it is not surprising that the company is afraid of sanctions and, according to our version, also because of this recently updated the board of directors. Representatives of the USM structure, which belongs to Alisher Usmanov, a prominent Russian oligarch, left it.
Games
The growth of the dynamics of game sales in Mail.Ru Group is mainly explained by the good performance of four projects.
First of all, the results of War Robots. Mobile network shooter about giant robots of Pixonic studio is today the most profitable game of the group of companies Mail.Ru .
In second place in terms of gaming revenue is the Warface shooter. And in the near future, its revenues should grow, since this fall the militaristic shooter was released on the consoles of the current generation. The game has collected 2 million downloads on PlayStation 4 alone. Recall that the project was developed by the Ukrainian branch of Crytek.
Mail.Ru The Group also highlights the high performance of Hustle Castle. A humorous mobile sim, inspired by Fallout Shelter and created by St. Petersburg Studio Nord, today boasts a MAU of 4 million.
The company is also satisfied with the Pathfinder: Kingmaker project, which is non-standard for itself. The premium game under the Western license from the developers of Allods Online, as stated in the press release, “is very pleased with the first results.”
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If we talk about forecasts, then a significant increase in indicators for the fourth quarter Mail.Ru Group is not waiting. After all, the main new releases of the company are planned for next year. At the same time, its management hopes that in October-December spending on the promotion of games will decrease and, as a result, their marginality will increase.
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