Sulake's Habbo Hotel Reports Strong Growth in First Quarter of 2010
- Company Behind Pioneering Social Game Habbo Hotel Posts its Best Quarter Ever
Helsinki, Finland – May 20, 2010 - Sulake Corporation, the parent company of
Habbo Hotel, the world's largest virtual
community and hotel for teenagers, today announced its best quarterly financial results in the
company’s history. Between January and March 2010, Sulake’s revenue increased more than 25 percent
compared with the same period last year, resulting in sales of $20 million (€14.7 million). The
strong revenue growth, combined with operating model improvements and cost savings in the final
quarter of 2009, has also led to a significant increase in the company’s profits. Sulake’s EBITDA
in Q1/10 totaled $3 million (€2.3 million, 15 percent of revenue).
Habbo Hotel is currently open in 32 countries in 11 different languages. More than 15 million
unique visitors spend a total of 45 million hours playing Habbo Hotel each month.
Timo Soininen, CEO of Sulake commented:
“Habbo Hotel's solid growth this quarter has been a result of our continual new and relevant
features, exciting campaigns and monetization improvements to the Habbo virtual goods economy.
Better Habbo user experience has also led to increased viral recommendations and a larger user
base. Additionally, our activities and presence on social networking sites like Facebook, and other
new acquisition partnerships have contributed to our growth. Also, the global online advertising
market recovery resulted in solid growth in our ad sales business.”
At a time when many online services are still searching for sustainable revenue models,
Sulake’s outlook is upbeat, as the company expects its revenue growth for this year to continue at
the current rate and to maintain healthy profitability, as well as positive cash flow.
Sulake’s 10 years' experience with continual service improvements, attentive community
nurturing, inventive virtual goods and multiple international micropayments is now paying off. With
its current effective operations and user focus, Sulake is ready to take advantage of the
persistent online market growth both in virtual goods and in ad sales.
Sulake’s 2009 revenue was $60 million (€49 million), approximately on par with 2008, despite
the year’s difficult economic conditions. The numbers were also affected by a substantial
technology transition from Shockwave client technology to Flash and operating model improvements
related to restructuring costs.
For more information, please contact
Sulake press.
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