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'Anipang' to drive SundayToz growth

Aug. 1, 2016 - 15:40 By Park Hyung-ki
The power of gaming content is evident nowadays as a growing number of smartphone users seek quality and entertaining content whenever and wherever.

Just look at Nintendo and its affiliate Niantic, which recently hit the jackpot with the augmented-reality mobile game “Pokemon Go” based on the animated character series. Similarly, Korea’s listed gamer SundayToz expects to see growth with its flagship puzzle game “Anipang.” 


The success of its new “Anipang” game series will be reflected in its earnings in the second half of this year, with analysts expecting its bottom line to improve later this year.

Yuhwa Securities said in a report that the Kosdaq-listed social gamer is expected to post an operating profit of 7.3 billion won ($6.6 million) in the second half, up 55 percent from a year ago on sales of 23.2 billion won.

The gamer, with a market cap of 333.5 billion won, posted consolidated sales of 16.8 billion won in the first quarter of this year, down from about 26 billion won a year ago, according to its financial statements. Its operating profit reached some 4.4 billion won, down from 10 billion won in the same period. Its 52nd week high was 44,000 won and its low was at 9,900 won.

With four of SundayToz’s “Anipang” series games ranking among the top 10 on Google Play, the social gamer seeks to expand with a key focus on growing overseas and making forays into other entertainment sectors such as animation and character merchandising.

“Based on our local experience as the No.1 social game developer, we seek to increase our users and sales by expanding overseas for growth,” said the company in its regulatory filings.

“We will expand into the animation and character merchandising businesses by using our intellectual properties in an effort to become a global cultural content company.”

SundayToz’s “Anipang 2,” which was released in January 2014, ranked second on Google Play in terms of daily active users, according to App Ranker, followed by “Anipang Mahjong” at third and “Anipang Sachunsung” at fourth.

“Anipang,” its first game released in 2012, ranked seventh on Google.

Smilegate Holdings, a game and entertainment investment company, is its biggest shareholder, with a 20.66 percent stake in SundayToz, followed by SundayToz founder and CEO Kevin Lee.

By Park Hyong-ki (hkp@heraldcorp.com)

This is the 16th in a series of articles analyzing major companies by market capitalization traded on the tech-heavy KOSDAQ market. -- Ed