ET: We had earlier written about how indiagames was looking for funding and so it did get that funding from UTV which is now making strides into gaming and has acquired a controlling stake in Ignition Entertainment (Ignition) — UK-based console gaming company — and in Indiagames a mobile and broadband gaming company in India, for Rs 128 crore.
UTV has acquired of 51% equity stake in Indiagames for Rs 68 crore! Indiagames reported an annual revenue of around $5 million for the last fiscal and houses close to 270 employees. While UTV bought 70% equity stake in the UK-based Ignition for around Rs 60 crore. The revenue of this 100-employee strong company is expected to be about $15 million for the calendar year ending December 2006.
Did you notice the diffrence above? a company with 100 employee’s and 15 million $ is revenue gets valued lower than a 270 people enterprise with 5 million $ in revenue. Hmm.. Could be also because console gaming internationally is much more competitive market than mobile gaming in India.
And its not only gaming that UTV is upbeat on.. UTV would invest Rs 135 crore in the development of animation movies over the next three years and at least three animation titles are expected from UTV’s motion picture slate by 2009.
