Developer Gameloft has announced its earnings for the last quarter, and they’re up. The company even beat out its own guidance, ending 2012 with a 27% boost in earnings on the year in total, up to $275 million. I would have thought much of that was from the major Christmas sales that we saw, but I would have been wrong: Gameloft says that the company’s Q4 sales were only up by 23%, with Q2 and Q3 showing more growth, at 35 and 37%, respectively.

That’s interesting. The company also announced that while sales of major new releases of course played a part in its success, over 56% of its sales in 2012 came from back catalog titles, older releases like Ice Age Village, Order and Chaos Online, and Asphalt 7.

It’s a lot to draw out a trend from the earnings report of one company, but those numbers definitely stand out. I wonder if we’re hitting a transition point on iOS in general — in the past, big new releases (and Christmas sales) have almost always made or broken companies’ earnings reports, but I wonder if, as the App Store gets more and more crowded, just having bigger libraries of back catalog titles might not make more of a difference.

Of course, at the same time, Gameloft announced that it has shut down its India-based studio, so not everything is going perfectly over there.

Gameloft announces 27% boost in earnings in 2012, 56% of sales from back catalog originally appeared on TUAW – The Unofficial Apple Weblog on Wed, 30 Jan 2013 13:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Source | Permalink | Email this | Comments