MTG’s acquisition of Raid: Shadow Legends maker Plarium has pushed the roll-up group to a best-ever set of financial results.
MTG’s Q4 net sales effectively doubled year-on-year at 3.1bn SEK, or ~$332m. Q4 profits as measured by adjusted EBITDA also hit a record 717m SEK, or ~$76m; adjusted EBITDA margin for the period was 23%, representing year-on-year growth of 58%.
Direct to consumer revenue was 32% of MTG’s income in Q4, and in-app advertising was up year-on-year to 22% from 20%, driven by growth in its word games.
The firm said it had 9.4m DAU in the period, up sequentially from 8.9m in Q3, again driven by growth in MTG’s word games.
UA spend across the group has broadly doubled, MTG said. It spent a record SEK 1.2bn (~$133.3m) in UA in Q4, and for the full year it spent SEK 4.3bn, or $477.1m – that’s 38% and 37% of total revenues for Q4 and the full year respectively.
MTG is also preparing to IPO its PlaySimple division in India this year. President and CEO Maria Redin said in the earnings call that followed that the IPO “has the potential to accelerate our M&A ambitions in the casual gaming market.” MTG intends to remain the majority owner of PlaySimple for the long-term, she added.
Elsewhere in the earnings call, MTG said Raid is roughly 70% of Plarium’s revenue, and has seen low single-digit growth in the last full year after a recent boost in UA spend.
Future game releases were described as a mix of smaller, lower risk bets and larger titles which have taken up more investment but could mean greater returns.
