营收和利润大幅增长但股价却暴跌，Rovio: 哪里出问题了？

原作者：Jon Jordan 译者：Willow Wu

鉴于Rovio的年销售额增加了55%，净利润增长94%，你可能会以为自2017年9月首次公开募股后，这家手游制造商的股价将会一路走高。

但事实却恰恰相反，Rovio是2017年度股市表现最差的游戏公司之一，而且到2018年他们仍没有摆脱这种噩运，Rovio还是今年第一季度跌得最惨的游戏公司。

自上市以来，Rovio已经累计下跌了59%。

rovio stare price (from pocket gamer.biz)

那么，我们要如何解释这两个看似矛盾的信息呢？

或者换成另一个问题：Rovio到底哪里出了问题？

大幅下挫

从Rovio的股价走势图可以看出，有两个独立事件导致了股价下跌。

第一次小幅下跌发生在11月中旬，也就是他们发布第三季度财报之前，当时公司股价下跌了20%。

第二次发生在2月中旬，这次是在发布年度财报之前，当时暴跌了53%。

当然了，股价上下波动是再正常不过的，投资者们可以根据长期的股价走势以及收益情况对公司进行评估。

同样地，新上市公司出现大幅波动更不是什么罕见的事，毕竟他们的上市时期较短，而投资者们手上也没有多少资料。

但是鉴于之前Zynga和King的惨痛教训，再加上Rovio对上市也采取了比较保守的策略，这个结果还是挺让人大跌眼镜的。

危险信号

我们来详细了解一下这两件事：首先，Rovio的第三季度财报是第一个危险信号。

虽然第三季度收益同比增长了41%，但是相比强劲的第二季度（《愤怒的小鸟》电影增加了收入），EBITDA（税息折旧及摊销前利润）下降了29%。

再考虑到利息、税收等等因素，实际上Rovio在第三季度还是略有亏损——这当然不是投资者们当想看到的，所以说股价下跌20%还是有迹可循的。

真正令人担忧的是这个结果并不完全令人意外。

部分原因是出于Rovio在用户获取方面的决策：2017年第三季度Rovio在UA上花费了2200万欧元，占到了游戏总收入的30%。而前一年只花费了10%左右。

Rovio CEO Kati Levoranta表示他们在用户获取方面的开销实际上是为了将来的游戏销量做投资，用会计学术语来说就是即时成本。

显然投资者们并不认同。考虑到这些投资者大多都是大型机构，而不是什么小型的零售商，Rovio本应该花更多时间向他们解释这个问题，留住这些大金主。

惨不忍睹

如果把11月的事件看作是未引起重视的预警，那么2月事件就是一场大屠杀。

再说一下，Rovio的财报数据看着还是挺好的。全年销售额达到了2.95亿欧元，净利润2000万欧元。

2017年的数据并不是问题所在，真正的矛盾在于投资者的期望与Rovio 2018年的趋势相去甚远。

在首次公开募股时，Rovio表示他们的游戏部门将会以超越西方市场总体增速的步调快速发展。从2017年的数据来看，他们确实达到了这个目标——游戏收益增长了56%，占到Rovio总体收益的83%。但如果今年的数据依然保持不变，他们就无法成为走在市场前面的先锋了。

Rovio的另一个目标是游戏运营利润率达到30%，这对投资者们来说就重要得多了。但相比2017的18%，我们很难想象在销量不暴增的情况下Rovio还有什么办法来实现。

综合上述，从市场角度来说，Rovio股价暴跌53%也不奇怪了。

吸取教训

所以Rovio当初应该怎么做才能避免现在这种惨状？

首先，他们在首次公开募股时应该做出比较保守的承诺。但如果他们说未来的销售额会保持平稳，不会有太大增长，那谁又会去投钱呢？

Rovio公司之后的股票走势在很大程度上是由其首次公开募股所决定的，而不是谣言所说的私下收购等等。

再者，当股票发行之后，Rovio应该把焦点迅速转移到提升运营利润上。现在他们终于把焦点放对了，但代价就是有更多实验性的游戏运营部门（比如Rovio设立在伦敦的工作室）被关闭，招致了不少内部问题。Rovio也损失了像Wilhelm Taht这样资质深厚的游戏人才。

Rovio在用户获取上的大笔投入看似也有问题，至少他们没能取得投资者们的认同。其实从2017年第一季度开始，Rovio在UA上的开销就已经达到销售额的30%了。

就行业标准来看，这个数字也不算特别高。然而当CEO Kati Levoranta谈到UA支出时，这就好像这是一个Rovio无法控制的因素，令人难以理解。

出现类似问题的还有他们花巨额投资的手游直播平台Hatch。

这本身是个很好的想法，Hatch得到了250多个游戏的支持，其中还不乏《纪念碑谷》这样的付费游戏，除此之外有广告商赞助。

大概是因为这个beta项目的各项指标都表现不错，Rovio去年在这个项目上的投资达到了500万欧元，而且2018年还要额外投入1000万欧元。

但是如果事实真的是这样，那Rovio之前为什么不跟投资者们好好谈谈这个前途大好的项目？

更糟糕的是，沟通方面的不顺畅也导致了Rovio相关部门的主管Rauno Heinonen离开公司。

下一步该做什么？

那么，Rovio的下一步棋该怎么走？

唯一的好消息就是接下去不会再有更坏的消息了。Rovio的游戏业务还是出于蓬勃发展状态，如果它今年的成绩比Rovio预计的要好，股价就会上升。

然而，已经年中了，Rovio的下一个热门游戏还没有任何风声。《愤怒的小鸟2》可能还是后几年的主打产品，去年发行的新游戏，《战斗海湾》《愤怒的小鸟：进化》和《愤怒的小鸟：消除赛》均表现欠佳。

Rovio是否还有创造优质游戏的能力？

除了Wilhelm Taht，最近几年还有一些资深的游戏开发者也离开了Rovio。而且，无论是哪家公司，要在市场中打造一款大热门游戏是越来越难了，尤其是考虑到要对抗Rovio这种年收入近3亿欧元的巨头公司。

也许Hatch真的能为Rovio带来可观的额外收入。但是说到手游方面，在那些经验丰富的投资者眼中，Rovio还是那个创造《愤怒的小鸟》的游戏公司，其它游戏似乎都无法成为影响他们投资的主要因素。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Given Rovio has just increased its annual sales 55 per cent and net profit by 94 per cent, you’d think the mobile games maker’s stock would be riding high following its September 2017 IPO.

Instead, the company was the worst performing game stock of 2017 and that dynamic has continued into 2018.

Rovio was also the worst performing game stock of Q1 2018.

In total it’s down 59 per cent since it floated.

So how can we reconcile these two seemingly contradictory pieces of information?

Or, in other words, answer the question: what went wrong at Rovio?

Crash and burn

As can be seen from the trajectory of its stock, two discrete events have driven Rovio’s share price lower.

The first, smaller shock, was prior to announcing its Q3 financials in mid-November when its share price dropped 20 per cent.

The second was prior to announcing its full year financials in mid February when the share price dropped a substantial 53 per cent.

Of course, it’s not uncommon to see stock volatility, both up and down, around earning announcements as that’s when investors get to see how a company is performing.

Equally, it’s not uncommon to see large volatility for newly floated companies because its management has no long-term track record and investors don’t have a long-term history with the company either.

Yet for Rovio to join Zynga and King as prime examples of now not to float a games company is a surprise, especially given the conservative approach it took to its floatation.

Warning signs

Looking at these two events in detail, Rovio’s Q3 announcement was the first warning sign.

Year-on-year sales were up 41 per cent, but compared to a very strong Q2 period which was boosted by one-off revenue from the successful The Angry Bird Movie, EBITDA (a measure of profit) was down 29 per cent.

And taking interest, taxes etcetera into account, Rovio actually made a small loss for the period.

That really wasn’t something investors were expecting, so a 20 per cent hit in the company’s share price was a logical outcome.

What was concerning, however, was this situation wasn’t a total surprise.

In part, it was the direct result of Rovio’s decision to boost user acquisition spending on its mobile games. UA spending was €22 million in Q3, or over 30 per cent of game revenue. In contrast, it had been just over 10 per cent 12 months prior.

Yet as Rovio CEO Kati Levoranta pointed out, user acquisition spending should be seen as an investment in future sales, although in accounting terms it’s booked as an immediate cost.

Clearly investors didn’t get the memo. So clearly Rovio should have spent more time explaining the situation, especially given the majority of those investors were large institutions and not small retailer traders.

Not a pretty sight

But if November was the warning, it went unheeded and February was a bloodbath.

Again, the headline figures appeared fine. Full year sales were up to €295 million and net profits to €20 million.

Indeed, the problem wasn’t really with 2017’s figures but the disconnect with Rovio’s guidance for 2018 compared with what investors expected – effectively what Rovio had suggested during its IPO pitch.

First off, Rovio stated it expected its games division to grow “faster than market growth in Western markets”. During 2017, this metric was met successfully with games revenue up 56 per cent, but that’s not going to be repeated in 2018 if overall sales are static. During 2017, 83 per cent of Rovio’s overall sales came from its games.

And more significantly for investors, Rovio’s second aim was that its games group’s operating profit margin would be 30 per cent. In 2017, it was 18 percent and it’s hard to see how that will do anything up drop if overall sales are static.

Given that situation, in market terms, the 53 per cent decline in the company’s share price was – again – justified.

Hard learnings

So how could Rovio have avoided this situation?

The first option would have been to be conservative during its IPO pitch. Of course, that would have been tricky as who would invest in a company predicting static future sales?

In that sense, Rovio’s subsequent stock trajectory was to a large degree set by its decision to IPO in the first place rather than take other rumoured options such as being acquired privately.

Once the decision to IPO had been set, however, Rovio should have focused on hitting that operating profit margin. It is now finally doing this, but by quickly shutting down the more experimental parts of its games operations such as its London office, when announcing its 2018 guidance, it merely caused internal problems.

This resulted in Wilhelm Taht, its experienced head of games, leaving the company with immediate effect.

Similarly, the amount of money Rovio is now spending on UA appears to have been a problem, at least, in terms of communication with investors. This is odd given that Rovio’s UA spending has been around 30 per cent of sales since Q1 2017.

This level of spending is not particularly high in terms of industry standards. Yet when CEO Kati Levoranta talks about UA spending, it’s almost as if it’s a factor over which Rovio has no control.

Similarly problematic is the amount of cash Rovio is injecting into its experimental mobile games streaming platform Hatch.

Certainly an interesting idea, it has widespread support with over 250 games, including premium titles such as Monument Valley, signed up to be available to play through the advertising-funded free service.

And presumably the metrics through the lengthy beta program are good, which is why Rovio is looking to add to the €5 million it invested in 2017 with at least another €10 million during 2018.

But if this is the case, it’s surprising Rovio hasn’t been more enthusiastic and open to investors about the business case for something it clearly hopes – or hopefully expects – to be a sizable and profitable business in future years.

And it’s these sort of communication issues that have also led to the company’s head of communications and investor relations Rauno Heinonen leaving.

What’s next?

So where does Rovio go from here?

The only good news is there can’t be much more bad news to come. Rovio’s games business is solid and if it performs better than Rovio thinks in 2018, the share price will rise.

In the medium-term, however, it’s not clear where Rovio’s next big hit comes from. Angry Birds 2 will likely be its number one game for a number of years, but other 2017 releases Battle Bay, Agry Birds Evolution and Angry Birds Match aren’t performing well.

It’s also not clear Rovio still has a strong games creation culture.

Beyond the loss of Wilhelm Taht, a lot of other experienced games developers have left Rovio in recent years, and – as for all mobile games companies – it isn’t getting any easier to come up with a hit, especially one that will move the needle on the €300 million annual business Rovio now is.

Perhaps Hatch will provide that spark the company needs. But when it comes to making mobile games, the smart money seems to suggest Rovio’s future valuation is going to be based on what it’s always been – the developer of Angry Birds.(source: pocketgamer.biz )