Facebook Inc’s (NASDAQ:FB) Biggest Game Publisher King Files for IPO

After prolonged circulation of rumors and guesswork, the news is finally out. King Digital Entertainment, the most successful game publisher on Facebook Inc’s (NASDAQ:FB) platform, as well as a huge name in the world of mobile gaming, filed with the SEC for an initial public offering.

King intends to list on the NYSE under the ticker symbol KING. The company’s F-1 registration statement, while a little short on information, contains a lot that can get eager investors excited. There are no details concerning IPO share price and number of shares to be offered. The filing lists 119.8 million outstanding shares as of December 2013.

The reliance upon estimations provided by mobile data anlytics companies and all the guesswork around just how much money King makes are now also coming to an end. The filing shows that annual revenues increased from $164 million in 2012 to a whopping $1.88 billion in 2013, culminating in over $550 million in net profit. User engagement charts in the filing show exponential growth as well, with monthly active users in the last quarter of 2013 sitting at 408 million.

Comparisons to Zynga Inc’s (NASDAQ:ZNGA) IPO will of course be drawn. Even though the majority of King’s revenues come from a handful of core franchises, unlike Zynga, the company has achieved superb monetization in the mobile space, with Candy Crush Saga hardly ever dropping from the number one spot of top grossing charts for both iOS and Android.

King certainly knows what it’s doing in the world of mobile but it will likely face stiff competition in the space from publishers such as GungHo and Supercell, collectively owned by Japanese giant Softbank. We will keep monitoring the company’s progress towards an IPO and publish updates as they become available.