Electronic Arts buys Glu Mobile, Maker of ‘Kim Kardashian: Hollywood’

Shares of glue rose 34% to $ 12.56 in extended trading on Monday.

“We did this because we believe mobile is the fastest growing platform on the planet” for video conferencing, said EA CEO Andrew Wilson. “The combination of these two companies creates a market leader in lifestyle and sport. ”

Mr Wilson said Glu, which has around 800 employees, will be able to build games based on EA’s intellectual property and take advantage of its marketing expertise and global presence to grow. Glu will be integrated into EA but will continue to work independently on the games in his portfolio, with CEO Nick Earl, former head of EA’s mobile division, still in charge .

“As successful as they were, they still did not have much international reach,” said Mr Wilson. “This is an opportunity for us to help them unlock that door.”

EA is the second largest U.S. videogame publisher with market capitalization after Activision Blizzard Inc. The videogame industry has benefited significantly over the past year from a demand-driven pandemic for entertainment at home, which has led to an increase in investment and construction activity. Mobile games accounted for about half of the nearly $ 175 billion spent by consumers worldwide on videogame software last year, according to estimates from analytics firm Newzoo BV.

Last week, both EA and Activision reported holiday quarter results showing higher net revenue and tickets from a year earlier that exceeded Wall Street analysts ’expectations. On Monday, Take-Two interactive software Inc.

they also reported increased revenue and net tickets for the fourth end of December.

Glu reported Monday that its fourth-quarter revenue rose 25% from a year earlier to $ 141.4 million, while net figures rose 15% to $ 124.8 million. Profit more than doubled from the prior year to $ 23.9 million.

EA is famous for making console and computer game franchises such as FIFA and Battlefield. They have a number of popular mobile games in their pack, including “Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes,” although none have been recently released and mobile makes up the smallest part – and slowest – of the company’s net recordings. In the fourth holiday, usually the company’s most profitable period, mobile net tickets grew 3% to $ 191 million and EA had more than 100 million monthly mobile players.

Glu, founded in 2001 as Cyent Studios and renamed later that year as Sorrent, went public in 2007. Tengl Holdings is a Chinese internet conglomerate Limited.

is Glu’s largest shareholder, with a share of about 15% it bought in 2015.

The company, which makes mobile-only games, finally said it had 14 million monthly players in the quarter to end in September. Glu gained fame in 2014 when he partnered with reality TV star Kim Kardashian West on her anonymous mobile game, which remains one of her most lucrative titles to date. Glu has grown to some extent through the acquisition of popular games such as “Covet Fashion” and “Design Home. ”

Glu’s MLB title would add a baseball to EA’s sports package, which includes Madden NFL, NHL and UFC, among others.

EA has said it wants to more than double the number of gamers who will be playing its sports games over the next five years. The company is working to close their purchase of UK studio Codemasters Software Co., which makes a series of self-racing games.

Write to Sarah E. Needleman at [email protected]