Major Tokyo-based mobile game maker gumi (official website) went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange today, under ticker 3903.
As a quick run down of the company’s history, gumi was established in 2007, just about when the mobile game industry in Japan started taking off. After providing games for feature phones on platforms like Mixi (2121) or Mobage from DeNA (2432), the company partnered up with GREE (3632) in 2010.
After releasing several hits on GREE in Japan, gumi switched to a more platform-agnostic approach, started creating native apps, and rapidly moved into other territories, including countries such as the US, China, Korea, France, Sweden, various markets in South East Asia, etc.
In the process, gumi partnered up with companies such as LINE or Sega and now tries to position itself as a Japan-based but highly internationalized maker and publisher of games.
gumi’s biggest hit so far is mobile action RPG Brave Frontier, one of the very few Japan-made games that traveled well to other countries, including America.
However, the company clearly needs new hits, especially now that it’s listed: today, on its first day of trading, gumi stock dropped 4.1% to close at 3,165 yen (the IPO price was 3,300 yen).
(As a side note, GREE invested in gumi in 2010 and currently holds a 4.48% stake in the company, down from 13.38%, after selling off millions of shares in the wake of the IPO.)
gumi’s market capitalization currently stands at US$760 million.
The next Japanese mobile game maker to be listed (on December 25, under ticker 3904) is Kamakura-based Kayac.
