CASUAL games maker Xurpas Inc. said its income for the first quarter of the year reached P59.2 million as its revenues rose by more than half.
The company did not provide comparative figures, but its income for the period was already more than half of the P104.5 million in profits that it generated for the first half of last year.
Revenues during the period surged by 52 percent, to P132.23 million from P86.76 million last year, bolstered by strong growth across its core mobile consumer and mobile enterprise businesses. The company’s earnings before interest (Ebit) grew by 66 percent for the first quarter, to P85.6 million versus P51.62 million the previous year, while Ebit margin increased to 65 percent from 59 percent a year ago.
“[The higher Ebit margin] demonstrates the company’s ability to maintain aggressive growth while managing its costs,” it said in a statement.
The company earlier said that it still has close to a billion pesos to burn for acquisition in Southeast and South Asian regions, as the company seeks to expand its customer base other than the gamers using their smartphones and other devices.
Nico Jose Nolledo, the company’s president and chief executive officer, said that the company will remain a casual games maker in the next few years but will try to expand its reach to other markets, such as its recent acquisition of Storm Flex Systems Inc., a firm that handles employee benefits of those working in business-process outsourcing firms.
“We are in no hurry to acquire companies as we think of our business on a long-term basis,” Nolledo said. He said that its mobile content-service segment continues to be the key driver of the company, accounting for 79 percent of total revenues or P309.37 million last year and the rest from its other businesses.
Nolledo said that the company expects Storm Flex to “contribute significantly” to the firm in the coming years. He declined to give specific numbers. Since Xurpas’s initial public offering last year, Xurpas already spent P299 million of its proceeds and some P940 million left to spend, which Nolledo said will be used to acquire several other companies in the two regions where the market is the same as those of the Philippines.