Author: Rebecca

Technology news: Candy Crush Saga maker’s IPO plans

| February 24, 2014

The company behind the wildly popular and addictive mobile apps is seeking to raise $500 million.

The mobile app development company behind Candy Crush Saga, King, has made technology news headlines as it is to raise at least $500 million in an initial public offering.Technolgy News - Candy Crush

The British computer games company has said that its most popular mobile app generated 78 percent of its Q4 revenues.

This, and a number of other statistics were also released in this latest mobile technology news, including that approximately 93 million people play the Candy Crush Saga app every day. This, according to the documents that King filed with the United States SEC. That application is, by far, its biggest hit and its popularity continues to grow.

The technology news continued as the company revealed that the game brought in $1.9 billion last year.

According to King, this is a massive increase over the tremendous earnings it was already generating through the Candy Crush Saga in 2011, which were “only” $64 million. All of these figures were included in the pre-IPO documents submitted by the company.

At the same time, though, King still found itself in a pre-tax loss of $698,000 in 2011. The company managed to turn that around quite dramatically in 2013, showing a $714.3 million profit. The company is registered in Ireland and has its headquarters in London, but has filed to float under the ticker “King”, on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the United States.

Now the company must face its next challenge, which will be to win over investors and build their confidence after the mobile gaming sector has performed quite poorly and unexpectedly in the past. Many will surely be worried that they will only find themselves burned once again by the hype of this technology news and the opportunity that King appears to be presenting.

The first case that typically comes to mind was that of Farmville on Facebook. It was created by the mobile app development company, Zynga, a major competitor of King. It drew a tremendous user base and created a great deal of excitement before its 2011 floatation, after which it rapidly plummeted to about one third of its IPO price, as the company scrambled to try to come up with another equivalent success.

Tablet commerce is taking off with consumers

| February 18, 2014

Shoppers are making it clear that when it comes to shopping and buying, larger screens are king.

The latest development that has been becoming increasingly clear when it comes to mobile marketing news is that it is actually tablet commerce that is taking the hearts of shoppers, more than that occurring over smartphones.Tablet Commerce and Consumers

Last year saw a doubling of overall mobile sales, bringing them to a striking $60 billion.

A report has just been issued by Javelin Strategy & Research, called “Mobile Payments Market: Tablet Shopping Surges as Mobile Retail Sales Top $60 Billion.” Within it, the trend toward tablet commerce was underscored, as it was evident that consumers appreciate the larger screen device for their shopping experience.

This trend toward tablet commerce shopping could be important insight for retailers.

The report reveals findings through surveys of 3,492 consumers that were conducted in June 2012, as well as the survey of an another 3,285 people last year in July. Yet another 3,509 people were also surveyed in November 2013 in order to generate the data seen in this research.

Executive vice president and research director of mobile at Javelin Research, Mary Monahan, explained that the mobile payments market has been surveyed by her company for about six years now, but that it has only been for the last two years that they have compiled historical trend data. The reason is that the survey in 2012, the questions on the survey were changed, making it so that the results from previous years could not be compared other than to an anecdotal level.

The survey results from 2013 showed a solid distinction in which retailers can find important insight, said Monahan. She pointed out that consumers are choosing tablet commerce to an increasing degree when they are shopping online on mobile devices. She stated that “Tablets played a dominant role in mobile shopping this year, accounting for approximately one-half of all mobile sales.”

Last year, tablets brought in $28.7 billion in mcommerce, which is five times the total of $5.1 billion that had been brought in the year before. Considering the level of penetration that smartphones have when compared to that of their larger screen counterparts, this figure is very interesting and shows that consumers find that tablet commerce offers something above and beyond what their cell phones are providing.