Gamevil tops among Korean mobile game publishers in global sales
By Yoon Sung-won
James Song Gamevil CEO
Gamevil said Monday it has been ranked the highest among Korean mobile game publishers in terms of mobile game sales at application stores such as Google’s Play market and Apple’s Appstore.
According to the “Top 52 Publishers of 2014” report released by a global mobile app analytics agency App Annie, Gamevil was listed in 11th place among the global mobile game publishers, up 15 steps from a year ago.
The company said the strong performance by its game development affiliate Com2uS is largely attributable for the upgraded status.
“In our mobile game publishing business, we could create significant synergy effects with favorable market responses to Com2uS’ mobile games both at home and abroad last year,” Gamevil spokesman Kim Se-min said. “We also think the strong overseas distribution network established by our global subsidiaries including Gamevil USA, as well as our universal game publishing platform ‘Hive,’ have well contributed to the achievement.”
Led by founder and CEO James Song, Gamevil acquired Com2uS in October 2013. Gamevil and the affiliate posted 144.9 billion won and 234.7 billion won sales in 2014, up 78.5 percent and 188.5 percent from a year ago. This was the largest annual sales for both companies.
Several mobile games including “Summoners War” and “Ace Fishing,” which were developed by Com2uS, led the strong performance of the company with a hit in the global market.
Gamevil and Com2uS said they predict to record 217.1 billion won and 398.9 billion won in sales in 2015, more than a 50-percent increase from last year.
App Annie has released the list since 2012 and Gamevil continued to be included in it, Kim said. It was ranked 29th and 26th in 2012 and 2013, respectively.
The company also surpassed Netmarble, a Korean company which operate a much larger game business than Gamevil in terms of local sales.
“We have established international mobile game publishing network since we were at the early stage of our business and continued to make inroads in the global markets by setting up local branches in Japan, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Europe and the United States,” Kim said. “We will maintain such aggressive strategies aiming at becoming the leading mobile game business in the world.”
Meanwhile, Finland’s Supercell, which provides the world’s most sought-after mobile game “Clash of Clans,” topped the list while King in Britain and LINE Corp. in Japan held the second and fourth places, respectively. Tencent and Electronics Arts were named in fifth and seventh place.