NEW YORK, Feb. 26, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --
Dear Shareholders:
2014 represented a milestone year for Tapinator, Inc. (OTC: TAPM). I would like to take this opportunity to review some of our most significant accomplishments, to provide an outlook for 2015 and beyond, and to personally thank our employees, partners and our loyal and growing shareholder base.
First, let me begin my listing some of our major 2014 Accomplishments.
1) We grew our revenues to $943,000 in 2014, from $131,000 in 2013, representing a 620% increase. Despite incurring additional public company costs, Tapinator's EBITDA grew 29% in 2014 to $91,714, up from $70,921 in 2013.
2) We completed our public listing on the OTC Markets in June 2014, thus allowing investors both small and large to participate in the Tapinator growth opportunity. Our listing has also brought significant positive media attention, including national Television coverage of Tapinator and its games on both CNBC and Bloomberg.
3) We released 69 new mobile games in 2014 and grew our player network to close to 50 million players worldwide who have installed Tapinator's mobile games.
4) We expanded beyond our rapid launch game division by reinvesting the cash flow from that business into our full featured game division. By separately focusing on a small handful of titles with higher production values, we are laying a foundation of gaming franchises across multiple genres, each of which we believe to have true hit potential. The first of these games, "Balance of the Shaolin," was featured by Apple as a Best New Game in 2014.
5) To accommodate our additional focus on full featured games, we added independent gaming studios in Denmark, Canada and Russia to our development capability.
6) We completed our first acquisition in 2014, acquiring social casino company, InAppFuel. This company has a unique, patent-pending product, which allows any mobile developer that uses virtual currency to integrate casino minigames, including slots and scratch-offs. This business-to-developer (B2D) solution not only brings Tapinator a new product line, but it also paves the way for expanding relationships with other developers and studios as IAF grows, thus creating additional acquisition and partnership opportunities in the gaming business.
7) We began test efforts as a games publisher to incorporate celebrity and branded IP into our products, launching games for Melissa Etheridge and Nik Walenda in conjunction with HyperJamz Gaming Group and Discovery Communications.
While we are proud of our accomplishments in 2014, there is much work to be done. From a competitive perspective, we believe Tapinator is well positioned. Unlike a number of other gaming companies, Tapinator's business model was designed completely native to the mobile gaming market and its revenue sources are highly diversified across over 80 titles and multiple gaming engines. While Tapinator is significantly smaller than certain competitors, having grown revenues in excess of 600% from 2013 to 2014, we anticipate being able to continue to deliver significantly higher revenue growth rates to our shareholders over the next several years as compared to our larger competitors.
We believe that that the overall macro-environment in which mobile gaming operates is a strong one and supported by:
- Rising smartphone penetration worldwide
- A growing middle class in emerging markets
- Increasing time spent by consumers on mobile devices
- An expanding share of disposable income going to gaming
We believe it is still early for the mobile gaming industry. Approximately two dozen public companies around the world have significant portions of their business in mobile gaming content creation including: King, Zynga, Glu, Tapinator and EA listed in the U.S.; DeNa, Gree, Nexon, and Gung-Ho in Japan; Gamevil, Kakao, Com2Us in Korea; Tencent, Boyaa, Forgame, and ZQGames in China. Upcoming potential IPOs include Line in Korea, Kabam in the U.S., and Gumi in Japan. Despite this seemingly large number of players, the mobile gaming industry remains wide open as we believe that no single competitor has yet to capture more than 15% of the global market. We believe significant M&A consolidation activity is bound to take place, creating additional upside opportunity for equity valuations within our industry.
We are only several months into 2015, yet the year is off to a promising start. Two of our games, namely our first RPG title, "Combo Quest," and a sequel to a previous hit game, "Endless Balance," were featured by Apple as Best New Games in January. As we look forward, we have set the following specific goals for Tapinator in 2015.
1) Achieve triple digit revenue growth and grow our player network to in excess of 100mm players.
2) Launch a minimum of five full featured games franchises across multiple genres including at least one franchise that leverages licensed IP from a well-known entertainment brand. We will continue to carefully evaluate key metrics for our full featured games and will double down on titles that meet our expectations.
3) Launch our first social casino property, "Video Poker VIP," and expand the team that is focused on this property. Social casino is a very lucrative area on mobile and we believe that there are certain subcategories, including video poker, where we can establish a leadership position.
4) Strengthen the Company's balance sheet through prudent financing strategies.
5) Continue to diversify our content portfolio and increase the size of our games catalogue to make our revenue streams more predictable.
6) Expand the scope of our publishing model and become a first stop for top independent game developers looking for an entrepreneurial mobile gaming publishing partner.
7) Lay the foundation for becoming a fully reporting company and for migrating to a higher listed exchange, including retaining a PCAOB certified auditing firm, and completing audits for the 2014 and 2013 fiscal years.
8) Continue to focus on prudent cash management and profitability, in conjunction with achieving significant top line growth.
While these goals are significant, I am confident in our ability to perform. None of this performance would be possible, however, without the hard work and support of Tapinator's many employees, partners and shareholders. I would like to personally thank each and every one of you for your ongoing support. I am honored to serve you and I look forward to building Tapinator into a world-class mobile gaming company.
Sincerely,
Ilya Nikolayev
Chief Executive Officer
About Tapinator:
Tapinator (OTC: TAPM) is a global developer and publisher of mobile games on the iOS, Google Play, and Amazon platforms. The Company focuses on operating its own titles, publishing properties where it holds substantial ownership positions, and making strategic investments into promising mobile companies. Tapinator's owned and operated portfolio includes over 80 mobile gaming titles that, collectively, have over 50 million users. A number of these titles have risen to the top of the mobile leaderboard charts and have been featured by the Apple, Google, and Amazon App Stores. Founded in 2013, Tapinator is headquartered in New York, with development offices in Pakistan, Denmark, and Canada. For a full listing of Tapinator game titles, please go to Tapinator.com. For further financial information on the Company, please go to OTCMarkets.com/stock/TAPM. For live updates, please like us on Facebook at facebook.com/Tapinator or follow us on Twitter at twitter.com/Tapinator.
Forward Looking Statements:
To the extent that statements contained in this press release are not descriptions of historical facts regarding Tapinator, they are forward-looking statements reflecting the current beliefs and expectations of management made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "may," "will" "expect," "anticipate," "estimate," "intend," and similar expressions (as well as other words or expressions referencing future events, conditions or circumstances) are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Examples of forward-looking statements contained in this press release include, among others, statements regarding the quoting and trading of our common stock and our expectations regarding our development and monetization plans for our mobile games. Forward-looking statements in this release involve substantial risks and uncertainties that could cause the development and monetization of our mobile games, future results, performance or achievements to differ significantly from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the uncertainties inherent in the hits nature of the mobile gaming business. Tapinator undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements. The quoting and trading of the company's common stock on the OTC Market Group's OTC Link quotation system is often thin and characterized by wide fluctuations in trading prices, due to many factors that may have little to do with the company's operations or business prospects. As a result, there may be volatility in the market price of the shares of the company's common stock for reasons unrelated to operating performance. Moreover, the OTC Market Group's OTC Link quotation system is not a stock exchange, and trading of securities on it is often more sporadic than trading of securities listed on the NASDAQ Stock market or another securities exchange. Accordingly, stockholders may have difficulty reselling any of their shares. For a further description of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to the business of the company in general, see Tapinator's filings with the OTC Market Group, which are available through http://www.otcmarkets.com.
CONTACT:
Tapinator Investor Relations
[email protected]
+1-(914)-930-6232
SOURCE Tapinator, Inc.
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