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- iCandy Interactive (ICI) reported a 46 per cent decrease in revenue to $1.9 million for the 12 months ending December 31, 2021
- The mobile game developer attributes this to a shifting focus on deploying its resources to position itself for growth within the evolving gaming industry
- Significantly however, iCandy strengthened its balance sheet with net assets increasing by 121 per cent to $34.1 million
- The company made a number of strategic acquisitions, including the recent purchase of Storms — all of which iCandy expects will contribute to a major revenue boost in 2022
- Company shares are up 10.7 per cent to trade at 15.5 cents
iCandy Interactive (ICI) has reported a 46 per cent decrease in revenue to $1.9 million for the 2021 calendar year.
The mobile game developer has released its unaudited preliminary final report for the 12 months ending December 31, 2021.
During the year, iCandy focused most of its resources on developing skills and positioning itself to take on the new growth areas of metaverse gaming and Web 3.0. According to the company, this sector-wide shift towards new and evolving models of gaming has led to weakened revenue from the traditional mobile phone games business.
After factoring in the cost of sales and various expenses, the tech stock reported a net loss of $3.8 million which marked a notable increase from its $179,737 loss in 2020.
Nevertheless, iCandy was pleased it significantly strengthened its balance sheet with total and net assets increasing by 104 and 121 per cent to $36.3 million and $34.1 million, respectively.
Key highlights for the company were the acquisitions of Lemon Sky Studios, a game and animation studio with an extensive portfolio. iCandy acquired the company for $44.5 million which was partially funded by a $40 million placement. The acquisition was completed last month.
Importantly, iCandy expects the Lemon Sky takeover will expand its presence in the video gaming industry which is forecast to be worth over $360 billion by 2025.
The company also acquired Nextgamer for $1.29 million. Nextgamer is a platform for hyper-casual games and is expected to complement iCandy’s offering.
In addition, iCandy acquired a 7.78 per cent shareholding in Mighty Kingdom (MKL), an ASX-listed game developer.
Subsequent to the period, iCandy further expanded its reach with the 51 per cent acquisition of Storms.
Storms is a Southeast Asian gaming company that iCandy believes will add synergetic benefits and aligns with its strategy to build a leading integrated metaverse platform.
When considering the Lemon Sky Studios and Storms acquisitions, which recorded $15.5 million and $4.3 million in respective revenue for CY2021, iCandy expects a major revenue contribution for the full year ending December 31, 2022.
Looking ahead, the gaming developer plans to utilise its 500 ‘highly-skilled’ game designers to create high-quality content for the metaverse and Web 3.0, which iCandy sees as being the future of the gaming industry.
At the end of 2021, iCandy had $18.5 million in cash compared to the $11.8 million it started with.
Company shares were up 10.7 per cent to trade at 15.5 cents at 1:40 pm AEDT.
