Gamania Group (橘子集團) yesterday said revenue could expand this year from last year’s NT$9.68 billion (US$296.46 million), driven by its growing new businesses and steady online gaming operations.
“Gamania’s new businesses face different challenges, but their revenue performances are growing,” Gamania chief financial officer Hank Su (蘇信泓) told reporters after an investors’ conference in Taipei.
However, Su said profit outlook might not be “as good as” last year’s, as the new businesses are still at the early stages of their development and require higher costs.
Gamania, an online game publisher in Taiwan, reported net profit of NT$387.88 million last year. The company started to expand its business scope to e-commerce, mobile payment, brand design, mobile app development, social media marketing and entertainment media production in 2014.
The company’s cross-border e-commerce subsidiary Jollywiz Digital Technology Co Ltd (樂利數位), which contributed 9 percent to the parent company’s total sales, is expected to see rising revenue this year, Su said, citing Jollywiz’s stronger foothold in the Chinese market.
Jollywiz provides outsourcing services, such as branding, customer relations and marketing for companies looking to enter the Chinese e-commerce market.
Su said the daily transaction made on Jollywiz via China’s Tmall.com (天貓) platform hit a record high of 900 million yuan (US$137.18 million) per day during the “Singles’ Day” shopping event in November last year.
“We expect the daily transaction for Singles’ Day this year to outpace last year’s record,” Su said.
In a bid to catch the rising opportunity of Taiwan’s third-party payment business, Gamania is scheduled to launch its payment tool, Gama Pay (橘子支), this summer, said Freda Tang (唐蜀茜), chief operating officer of the company’s subsidiary Gash Pay Co Ltd (樂點行動支付).
Tang said Gamania has set up payment receivers at more than 100,000 locations across the nation, including taxis operated by Taiwan Taxi Corp (台灣大車隊) and convenience store outlets of Taiwan FamilyMart Co (全家便利商店).
Gamania is upbeat about the potential in the third-party payment business in Taiwan, as more than 74 percent of transactions were made via cash instead of other payment methods last year, she said, citing domestic research.
As for the company’s core online gaming business, which accounted for 27 percent of the firm’s total revenue last year, the outlook is relatively stable this year compared with a few years ago, Su said.
Gamania plans to launch 10 new mobile games in the second half of this year, and expects the sales of this segment to reach the peak next quarter following the beginning of the summer vacation, he said.
In the first quarter of this year, Gamania reported net income of NT$18.6 million, plunging from the NT$323.32 million last year, when it recognized more than NT$200 million in non-operating gains that spiked the comparison base, Su said.
Gamania’s revenue for the first four months of this year dropped 6.72 percent annually to NT$2.96 billion, Su said.
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