The Wall Street Journal has an interesting report about Tencent’s pending acquisition of Supercell from SoftBank, also the parent company of GungHo. Tencent’s reportedly paying $9 billion for Supercell, after SoftBank spent $2.1 billion to acquire a 51% stake in Supercell back in October 2013. Tencent has $16 billion in net cash according to the Wall Street Journal, and so the Supercell acquisition would be a way for them to make a huge splash in mobile gaming. Tencent is a major player in China, with their WeChat service being massively popular. But WSJ’s Jacky Wong throws some cold water on the deal, pointing out that “it would take 12 years of Supercell’s earnings last year to pay back Tencent’s investment." And growth is not guaranteed. In fact, there’s a bit of a concerning development with Supercell’s daily revenue:
A slow daily decline through 2015, before a massive Clash Royale (Free) spike, before the inevitable decline. US grossing ranks tell the same story – Clash of Clans is down to #5 in the US iPhone grossing as of publication, Clash Royale is at #7. In fact, in the US, one could argue that Machine Zone is the current top dog on the App Store. Game of War (Free) and Mobile Strike (Free) are #2 and #3 on the iPhone Top Grossing respectively. And while they’re published under different names, it takes only a bit of sleuthing that Machine Zone originally filed the trademark on Mobile Strike. Plus, the games are so very similar, just with different themes. And reading the tea leaves, it feels like people are growing tired of Clash Royale, and maybe it’s cannibalizing Clash of Clans more than we think…
Anyway, there’s a fascinating future here, and while Supercell is about to change hands again, maybe there’s reasons to be a little skeptical of their future as the top-flight player on the App Store.
