$439 Million
JMDT ended its first day on NASDAQ with a market cap of $439 million. That is about ten times expected revenues for the current year. JMDT opened at $16 per share and closed at $22.51, up 45%.
It's good to be JAMDAT. Comments on online boards were generally positive, and, siginifcantly, they were mainly in the context of the impact on the game indutry in general. JAMDAT is being compared to THQ, not Dwango and Summus, two mobile game makers that are public early in their development.
JMDT's debut had some effect throughout mobile games: DWGN.OB volume spiked on JMDT's debut, but the price sagged to $1.40 from $1.51. SUMU.OB. also had a fairly busy day but the price when almost nowhere to $0.28 from $0.29. BBMF, an Asian mobile game maker that has jumped in with relish in the mature and crushingly competitive iMode market doesn't have their stock price data up yet. They, too, are a reverse-merger "IPO" in mobile games.
JMDT has brushed off associations with the penny stocks in moible games, so who to compare them to? Gameloft (GFT:FP, Bloomberg) has been public since 2000, and their association with Ubi and the Guillemot family made them an instand top-tier player in mobile games. Both JAMDAT and Gameloft have comparable approaches to the mobile game business: translate console game management experience into solid results in mobile games.
Gameloft shares have taken a beating in September, so there are high volume days recently that probably have nothing to do with JMDT, so let's take a longer term comparison: TTM revenue at Jamdat and Gameloft are within 20% of each other, but Gameloft's market cap is a more earthbound $149 million. Gameloft's revenue are growing fast: up 239% over the first half of 2003.
While the share prices are difficult to compare, revenue growth at Gameloft shows that a top-tier mobile game company with a base in Europe that is expanding into the U.S. can have growth that is comparable to a leading U.S. mobile game company that is expaning into Europe.
As other companies join JAMDAT in the stock market, we will be able to discern the long-term trends in mobile game value: Will it devolve to the grind-em-out approach taken by BBMF, or will mobile games become a powerful medium with high value content, and a revenue base that could add up to rival the rest of interactive entertainment put together?
posted by Zigurd @ 5:04 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
What do you think about SUMU's multiplayer "Phil Hellmuth's Texas Hold 'em", "Sports Illustrated swimwear", their strong association with Fujifilm, and many other applications? They seem to be rocketing up in shareprice as of today. It remains to be seen if they can maintain that, however.
I play Phil Helmuth poker.
The current version is ugly and barely usable, but it is real multiplayer Texas Hold 'Em, unlike other "poker" games on BREW portals that do not provide a real poker room experience.
I hear they are bringing out a new version. Poker will be highly competitive.
I would guess that SI swimsuit pictures are doing a lot more for their revenue than Phil Helmuth Poker.
I have been meaning to post another comment, update the numbers on SUMU and DWGN, and take a look at other public mobile game companies.
SUMU has gone up to around $0.50. They announced a new version of their poker game. From the screen shots on their TV ad, the UI sucks less than the current version. Downloading it now...
Ugliest. Avatars. Ever. The main game-play screen looks a little better, but still utilitarian.
The controls on the first version were horribly laggy. These seem less so, but on several occasions I counted off 10-15 seconds between betting and having my bet announced in the little word-bubble. That plus a 20 second move timer could get slooow if I wasn't playing against bots that bet instantly.
It's better. It's OK. Needs more work. It is still the only real multiplayer Texas Hold 'Em on Get It Now.
Look for me at the 5/10 tables.
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