There's Nowt So QR as Folk

Motricity Closing Stock Price Since IPO

Motricity's stock has really sailed in the last couple of weeks following positive analyst recommendations from Deutsche Bank, RBC Capital Markets & most recently JP Morgan, which gave it an overweight rating & a $19 price target on bullish growth prospects for the the company's international business, particularly in Southeast Asia. As a result of the recent run-up, Motricity now has a market cap of $522mil and the 2nd highest enterprise value on my list of public mobile entertainment ecosystem companies... blowing past Gameloft to sit (well) below Japan's DeNA. Let's see if they can keep it value up through Q3 earnings season.

PocketGamer.biz: 10 Mobile Gaming Trends Sept 2010

Updated: Name That Claim!

On the heels of the massive popularity of the "Name That Balance Sheet!" game a couple of weeks ago, it's time to play everyone's other favorite game, "Name That Claim!" Be the first to correctly identify the mobile entertainment company associated with the claims on the website screen grab above and, if you happen to be at the Redwood Room in SF on the nights of Oct 6th or 7th, 2010 while I'm at that venue, you'll be entitled to one (1) overpriced Vodka Redbull and a few minutes of my blether. No rainchecks, no cash value, no substitutions. Answer must be submitted in comments below before 6PM Pacific Time today (Sept 27, 2010).

Top 5 Paid Game Downloads for iOS as of Sept 2010

As usual, please let me know if I've missed any titles here or if I don't have the most updated figures... obviously these numbers are pretty dynamic and I've noticed that these self-reported downloads don't always get picked up by outlets in a timely manner. I'd be interested to see numbers (broken out for iOS) for titles like Monopoly and Tetris, which I imagine could be in league with these guys. If I can collect enough additional data, I'll re-do this as a Top 10 list. Please note that these are straightforward Paid App downloads and do not take into account freemium, or paid with upsell models, which in the case of franchises like Tap Tap from Tapulous can be significant... allegedly yielding up to $1mil a month at the end of last year.

BTW - do you guys think this means that the most any publisher has ever made from any one title in the App Store, using the paid app model, is $8.4mil ($2.99 x 4mil x 70%)?

US & Japanese Mobile Activity Compared

This represents a comparison of comScore's MobiLens data for the US market released September 15, 2010 and data for the Japanese market released September 22, 2010. The areas of major difference in behavior are 1) text messaging, which is a relatively recent phenomenon in Japan, where e-mail is the preferred form of mobile-to-mobile communication (54% usage); and 2) browser usage, which has been popular in Japan for over a decade and for a long time was more widely used than the online internet (it may still be). In terms of app usage, the gap is closing very quickly and I suspect we'll see parity sometime next year. One stat from the Japanese market, that's interesting (and not on this spreadsheet, because I don't have an apples to apples comparison) is mobile video consumption. Apparently 22% of Japanese mobile users watched TV and/or video on their mobile phones... which has to be substantially higher than in the US, where I believe usage is under 10% (a little help?).

Top 25 Game Titles In Nokia's US Ovi Store

It's been a year since my last, somewhat snarky, look at the top paid game titles in the US version of Ovi Store. Clearly, during that time Nokia has been able to attract a more robust line-up of publishers to their platform. From what I can tell Gameloft, EA Mobile & Digital Chocolate are now each fielding about 40 paid titles on the service. Meanwhile, Glu Mobile & I-play each have about half that many, with the latter company seeing particularly strong performance in the US Top 25... perhaps a factor of their AppStore-esque pricing strategy. On that note, as we've seen across the spectrum in mobile gaming, price erosion is in full effect... with the average price of the Top 25 having dropped 33% from $4.03 to $2.71 in the last year. I must say, I was happy to see some lingering randomness from publishers I've never heard of, but by virtue of there being less of it, and in light of the myriad head-scratchers that pollute Android Market, this aspect of Ovi is much less amusing than it was a year ago.

Though Nokia recently touted that they're doing 2mil downloads a day through the Ovi stores worldwide, I feel pretty confident that;

1. very little of that activity is coming from the US market (I wouldn't fall down if I learned the Ukraine represented more downloads);
2. most of those downloads are free games (as is true across all smartphone app stores);
3. considering that no publishers are bragging publicly or privately about Ovi revenues, numbers are still small relative to other channels.

That said, with new talent at the helm at Nokia (and Ovi), more carrier billing integration and a slew of new games friendly devices on the horizon, we'll all be hearing about some boffo results everywhere, including the US, by September 2011... right?

btw - I put this data together on the web store, prior to selecting a handset... that way I figured I'd get the best result across devices.

Mo'gossip: Casio G'zOne Rock... Hideous Love Child of G-shock & Pontiac Aztek?

Gartner Mobile OS Market Share Forecast Through 2014

Click here to read Gartner's release associated with this table.

Name That Balance Sheet!

It's time to play everyone's favorite game... "Name That Balance Sheet!" Click on the image above, identify the mobile company associated with this balance sheet recently filed with the SEC, and submit your answer as a comment to this post. If you answer correctly by 6pm PDT Friday September 10, 2010 you'll be entered for a chance to win a supermarket sushi lunch with me at the Ralphs of your choice in Glendale, CA (or something nicer if you're paying), at my convenience, sometime in the next 6 months. Travel and accommodations are not included... and no, you can't get the party platter (maximum retail value is $8.99). If history is an indicator, very few will enter, probably no one will win.

Samsung's Galaxy Tab Looks Kinda Badass

• Android 2.2
• Video calling
• Google Maps Navigation embedded
• Flash Player 10.1
• and you can hold it in one hand

...take that iPad

Gameloft: Revenue & Net For The Last 2 Halves

Gameloft released its financial results for the first half of 2010, after teasing topline sales late last month. The points that caught my eye were...

1. Profitability seems to be ramping nicely, which isn't typical in the space
2. The company now sits on a stash of $33mil in cash
3. Emphasis on Java/BREW marketshare the company is gaining as competitors exit that space

All of which make me wonder what how much of Gameloft profitability is being generated from non-smartphone channels.