Brief:

• Glu Mobile boosted revenue by 18% to $112.9 million in Q4 from a year earlier on the strength of games like "Design Home," "Covet Fashion" and "Tap Sports Baseball." The mobile game developer posted a profit of $10.8 million, compared with a loss of $1.3 million a year earlier, per an announcement.
• Glu Mobile reported growth in bookings, a measure of financial performance, of 10% to a record $423.3 million for the full year. The results included $176.3 million in bookings for "Design Home," $66.1 million for "Covet Fashion" and $90.9 million for "MLB Sports Baseball."
• Average bookings per daily active user (ABPDAU) rose 22% to 41 cents in Q4 from a year earlier. Glu Mobile's adjusted earnings of 11 cents a share beat analyst estimates of 8 cents a share, per Zacks Investment Research data cited by the Associated Press.

Insight:

Glu Mobile, which is best known for games like "Kim Kardashian: Hollywood" and "Diner Dash," is showing signs of rebounding from setbacks such as the delayed release of its "Disney Sorcerer's Arena" game that was first announced last year. The game may help the company to broaden its appeal among younger mobile gamers who are fans of Disney and Pixar characters and like to play role-playing games (RPG). Meanwhile, "Design Home," "Covet Fashion" and "Tap Sports Baseball" have continued to grow.

The mobile gaming market is competitive, but is also one of the biggest areas of growth for game developers. Mobile games generated 60% of the revenue of the global video game market in 2019, generating $49 billion in revenue and a profit of $16.9 billion, a study by GoldenCasinoNews.com found. "Hyper casual" games that appeal to people who don't consider themselves hardcore gamers are especially popular on mobile platforms. The number of hyper casual games jumped 170% in 2019 from a year earlier, more than three times the gaming industry average, while downloads surged 150%, according to an AppsFlyer study.

Games that monetize their content with in-game advertising can help mobile marketers to reach consumers in a brand-safe environment. The percentage of free-to-play mobile games that carry ads grew to 94% last year from 87% in 2018 as more developers sold ad inserts, per a study by game marketing firm deltaDNA. Rewarded video ads, which unlock game content in exchange for watching an ad, were the most popular category as deployment rates rose to 82% of games in 2019 from 65% a year earlier, per deltaDNA.