Käyttäjä:Paulparker
Is The GungHo Fever About To Break-
<html>Over the past months, a mobile appmania has gripped Japan’s stock exchanges. No company has benefited more than GungHo,In Toronto, bingeing on books, with market cap briefly in May and still topping $14 B in early July. There are valid reasons to get excited by GungHo – its lead game, “Puzzle and Dragons”,hitin April. GungHo is riding the wave of ‘s explosive applicationrevenue growth in Japan; Google Play appsales eclipsed ‘s iOS app sales in that market during 1Q 2013.
But the spring revenue bonanza of “Puzzle and Dragons”was achieved mainly on monetizing therabidaffectionthe Japanese fans have for the game. GungHo’s market cap now equals ‘s – but does it have the same global appeal? Many app expertssuspect that thein-app purchase magicof “Puzzle and Dragons” is specific to Japan. And the past week has given some ammunition to skeptics.
InJune, GungHo and European app titan SuperCell launched that improved the performances of their flagship games dramatically. Characters from GungHo’s “Puzzle and Dragons” were featured in Supercell’s “Clash of Clans” and vice versa. The short term results from the cross-promotion were solid. Supercell’s “Clash of Clans” soared in Japan – it moved from outside of Top 500 of theiPhone download chart to briefly become the #1 mobile app in late June. In revenue rankings, “Clash of Clans” moved fromaround#100in the beginning of Juneto. An effective campaign that demonstrated that “Clash of Clans” has at least some cross-over appeal in Japan, where Western apps tend to struggle.
However, the cross-promotion helped “Puzzle and Dragons”much lessin the US market, which it has tried to conquer sincelate 2012. It did hit the Top 20 iPhone download chart in June – but only for three days. By July 3, it had tumbled right back to #146 – a puzzlingly weak performance considering the recent hype over the game in the US media. But it’s the revenue chart that reveals the true weakness of the franchise in America. Despitethe downloadbump in late June, ”Puzzle and Dragons” collapsed from #10 position in the US iPhone revenue chart on June 30 to .It’s abig tumble in just three days. It looks like a symptomof an ineffectivein-app purchase mechanism.
It seems to support what GungHo critics have been saying for months: the game hasonly modestcross-over appeal in the West. GungHo has been pushing this game to US audiences since late 2012 and the in-app monetization strategy simply does not seem to work in America. “Puzzle and Dragons” peaked in the US iPhone revenue chart at #23 in late February; at #16 in March; at # 20 in April,2013 New NFL T Shirts, etc. After each peak,San Francisco Giants t shirts, the game has rapidly dropped out of Top 50. GungHo can generate one or two day sales spikes via various marketing campaigns. But the American consumers simply aren’t warming up to the convoluted game mechanic that frames the simple puzzle elements.
A comparison to another simple puzzle game embedded in a larger narrative is illustrative. “Candy Crush Saga” by King.com debuted in mid-November in America. It hit the Top 10 in the iPhone revenue chart in less than three weeks. It hit Top 5 in early January – and has not dropped out of Top 5 since then. It hasn’t placed worse than #2 on the revenue chart for longer than two days since the last week of January.
That is what a well-constructed in-app purchase strategy looks like. A game that connects witha paying audience within a month andthen has thestickiness to deliver daily Top 5 sales performance for half a year. This is pretty much what “Puzzle and Dragons” has been able to demonstratein its home market in Japan. But can GungHo’s $14 B market cap really be justified only on the Japanese smash success of “Puzzle and Dragons”? I don’t think so – I believe the valuation hinges onglobal successs. And the Supercell cross-promotion has actuallyexposed just how weak the monetization muscle of GungHo’s flagship property is in America.
Western companies are now rushing to forge links to Japan; the announcement aboutahas effectively tripled the share price of KLab in the past month. But there are clearly major questions about just how well the mobile apps from Japan click with the West – and vice cersa.</html>