Supercell to launch 3rd game after surging sales
HELSINKI — The Finnish 'Clash of Clans' mobile game maker Supercell said Wednesday it plans to launch its third game next month on a tide of soaring revenues and profits.
The new game, 'Boom Beach,' will be launched in March. It's been tested in Canada and Australia, ranking fifth in both countries' iPhone app store lists, according to the company.
Supercell's success, with just two games that have topped international popularity charts, has not gone unnoticed outside the small Nordic country.
Last year, Supercell sold a 51 percent stake to Japan's SoftBank and GungHo in a $1.5 billion deal, but maintains that its headquarters and most of its operations, employing some 130 people, will remain in Finland.
It is among a host of smaller companies — spearheaded by Rovio Entertainment, the maker of the ubiquitous 'Angry Birds' mobile game — which Finns hope will help fill a gaping hole in the country's economy left by an ailing Nokia that is selling its cellphone operations to Microsoft Corp.
Supercell, which was founded in 2010 and started developing games for tablets a year later, has shipped more than 165 games on 12 different platforms. It has also produced another hit game, 'Hay Day.'
Alongside the announcement, Supercell said its pretax profits surged to $464 million last year compared to $51 million in 2012. Sales jumped more than eightfold in 2013 to $892 million, compared to the previous year when sales amounted to $101 million.
Supercell gave no other figures, saying it wasn't guided by economic pursuits.
"Naturally, we're hugely proud of our financial results even though we never established Supercell to make money," CEO Ilkka Paananen told Finnish broadcaster YLE. "Of course, our good cash flow situation, above all, provides us with the possibility of making long-term plans."
