This Aussi article on virtual worlds must have been written by Crocodile Dundee. I do not know who this guy interviewed at Sulake if anyone to state:
"Habbo, owned by the Finnish company Sulake, generated about $100 million in revenue in 2008, 75 per cent of it from teenage users buying virtual furniture to deck out their private rooms in the Habbo Hotel. The remainder comes from advertisers." 2008 is not even over yet dude. And HABBO revenue has been shrinking since Japanese VC SoftBank's 5% purchase in 2006. HABBO revenues peaked in 2005 and have dropped steadily since then http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/virtual-playgrounds-for-kids/2008/10/09/1223145499071.html
Interestingly, the article quotes Aussie HABBO Chief Jeff Brookes; "Habbo is looking to expand its global teen reach - it has about 9 million users - to older audiences although it is acutely aware of start-ups looking to poach its users.
"It's the brightest star in the online sector in terms of development and where people see the future," Sulake's Asia-Pacific regional director, Jeff Brookes, says. "For Habbo, once our users hit 17 they pretty much drop off. It's why there are 200 virtual worlds in development .. everyone is trying to get another one going that will catch them at 17 and catch them again after that."
2 comments:
Sulake has officially stated that their H1/2008 revenues were 25,6 million euros (20% growth), and they expect to grow somewhat faster (30%) for the full year, so it should be roughly 60 M€ for the full year. With today's EUR-USD rate that would be around $80 million.
It is weird to claim that in 2005 Sulake would have made more money than now. According to Sulake's press release on 8th of Dec 2005 (http://bit.ly/hH4F3) they had 4,5 million monthly visitors.
So if Sulake was making more money then than now, their ARPU then would have been over twice what it is now. Their advertising revenues would have been more than double also, which is very unlikely as ad revenue scales with userbase and rates really go up in the US, where Sulake has only in the past couple of years expanded significantly.
Overall that claim sounds like a lot of horse manure =).
The only way to know if this claim is horse manure or not is through Sulake financial transparency which is unlikely given it is privately held and there are many varying, conflicting and contradictory statements from the Company.
Post a Comment