The business world is buzzing with activity nowadays. After major companies like Dell and Western Digital making substantial investments in EMC and SanDisk respectively, the next company to acquire assets is Activision Blizzard.
Their purchase? King Digital, the developer of the massively popular mobile game Candy Crush. And they were not skimping at all and will spend $5.9 billion for the acquisition.
Activision Blizzard is paying $18 per share for their purchase, a price almost 20% premium over King Digital's recent price. The transaction is also set to be all-cash and will be completed by spring of this year, BGR reported.
CEO of Activision Blizzard Bobby Kotick said, "The combined revenues and profits solidify our position as the largest, most profitable standalone company in interactive entertainment." He added, "With combined global network of more than half a billion monthly active users, out potential to reach audiences around the world on the device of their choosing enables us to deliver great games to even bigger audiences than ever before."
According to Business Insider, Activision Blizzard has its target on its mobile presence. Before the purchase of Candy Crush, a measly 5% of its revenue was generated from mobile and other sources. This is in comparison to 54% from consoles, 21% from online games and 14% from PC games. Their mobile game Hearthstone is currently its most popular but the game is also available on PC.
Activision Blizzard is the proud owner of a highly "formidable war chest of intellectual properties" such as "Call of Duty," "World of Warcraft," "Star Craft" and "Guitar Hero."
King Digital, on the other hand, posted $490 million revenue in Q2 and Candy Crush accounted for a full third of that. As to other sources of income, the company was struggling. In fact, the company had been posting declining growth recently.
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