Finland's Supercell reports sales up 2% while core earnings slip (updated)
11/02/2020 12:07
(Adds CEO comments, details)
HELSINKI, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Finland's biggest game maker
Supercell reported on Tuesday its full-year 2019 sales rose 2%
to 1.39 billion euros ($1.52 billion) although core earnings
slipped 4%.
China's Tencent Holdings 0700.HK increased its stake in a
consortium that controls Supercell to 51.2% from 50% in October.
The consortium owns 88.1% of the game maker.
Supercell reported its earnings before interest, taxation,
depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in 2019 were down 4% at
517 million euros, the company said.
The 10-year-old firm gave no more financial figures but
Chief Executive Ilkka Paananen said its top-performing game
Clash of Clans, released in 2012, was among the world's 10
top-grossing games.
"Short-term goals don't mean anything to us," Paananen said.
"On a monthly basis, a couple hundred million people play our
games actively."
He said Tencent President Martin Lau was patient as an
owner, saying his idea of long-term was "a decade or several
decades."
Research firm App Annie said in December that Supercell's
Clash of Clans was the past decade's world top game in all-time
consumer spend, beating Japanese Mixi's Monster Strike and U.S.
based Activision Blizzard's Candy Crush Saga.
Supercell's fifth and newest game, Brawl Stars, is about to
join their four previous games in booking total sales worth more
than 1 billion euros, the company said.
Paananen said Brawl Stars had become "a huge success",
particularly in South Korea after its release in 2018.
"At some point we calculated that one tenth of the country's
population was playing Brawl Stars actively," he said of the
51-million nation.
($1 = 0.9165 euros)
(Reporting by Anne Kauranen; Editing by Edmund Blair)
((anne.kauranen@thomsonreuters.com; +358925166112;))