The prevailing skepticism about tech IPOs is that frothy valuations sans profits are contributing to a bubble. Yet King Digital Entertainment, maker of the highly addictive game Candy Crush Saga is one of the few big mobile companies posting hefty revenues and profits ahead of its own IPO. While rival games maker Zynga is booking losses and struggling to keep its shares aloft, King.com booked $568 million in profit, on sales of $1.8 billion in 2013.
King Digital Entertainment, maker of the wildly popular mobile game Candy Crush, expects to be valued at as much as $7.6 billion in its initial public offering, according to documents filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That astronomical figure may make your head spin, but the company’s CEO has a simple response: Try our games and you’ll understand. In the prospectus filed with the SEC, King Digital Entertainment CEO Riccardo Zacconi talked directly to the reader.
