On October 1, Nexon completed its 100% acquisition of Japan's mobile social gaming company, Gloops. (IR material http://ir.nexon.co.jp/cms/pdf/release_3143822465187953.pdf)
Gloops prides itself in having 427 employees, annual sales of ¥ 237 billion, ordinary profit of ¥ 5.8 billion, and net earnings of approximately ¥ 30 billion (as at June 2012). The fact that it is well ahead of major Korean mobile game companies in terms of profit is one of the first things that catches one’s eye – out of many. Gloop has these attributes that made Nexon take note for the Merger
1) Established cash cow
2) Owned by a few shareholders
3) Concentration on genres that Nexon is unfamiliar with, and complements its existing portfolio.
Let’s then turn to analyze what Nexon obtained through this deal.
1) With this acquisition, Nexon latched itself in the Japanese mobile market faster than any other foreign company. Monthly profit of more than KRW 10 billion in sales in the Japanese market, along with cumulated user pool and data are a plus.
2) It identified that the attention of the Japanese game industry (that has been represented by consoles) was shifting to mobile games and acquired the default grounds. In fact, most of the profit of famous Japanese companies such as Konami, CAPCOM and Bandai Namco Games is coming from social/mobile industry. Furthermore, there have been big hits in the mobile market such as ‘Puzzles and Dragons’ and the Japanese mobile game market is welcoming the change brought by smart devices.
3) The major developers of the GREE platform, Gumi and Mobage’s major is Gloops – it currently stands as the biggest and major player. This means that Nexon secured a sizeable line that links with DeNA, albeit indirectly.
Personally speaking, one of the interesting points about Nexon is that it is advancing to be ‘the best contents publisher of platforms’. Nexon’s rise as the dominant platform publisher would be ideal, and a series of trial and error experiments would be necessary along with a lot of time.
Source: Wild Card Consulting (http://www.wildcard-co.com/)
Wild Card Consulting (CEO Yoon Sang Kim) specializes in the business development of social games, smart device games, game platforms and other related fields.
