Q4 revenues of $19.1 million, but publisher pleased with positive cash flow from operations.
Mobile games publisher Glu Mobile generated revenues of $19.1 million in the fourth quarter of 2009 - down 11.6% year-on-year.
The company reported a GAAP net loss of $6.9 million for the quarter though, significantly better than the GAAP net loss of $37.2 million in Q4 2008.
Glu also said that it was cashflow-positive from operations in Q4 2009, generating $195,000 in cash from its operations that quarter.
However, the clear message from the company's financials is that it's not yet capitalising from the boom in iPhone gaming to the extent that rivals EA Mobile and Gameloft are.
"Fourth quarter 2009 revenues of $19.1 million, were slowly below our expectations, primarily due to a faster than expected deceleration of our Java and feature phone business, as our market accelerate to transition towards smartphones," said CEO Niccolo de Masi in the company's earnings call.
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Glu has notched up more than 20 million downloads on the App Store since its launch in July 2008, although that includes both paid and free. In 2009 as a whole, Glu generated around $2 million from the App Store.
It did say that its smartphone revenues nearly doubled in Q4 - $1.74 million compared to $0.88 million in Q3. de Masi said that Glu plans to double its studio capacity for smartphone games in 2010, while also focusing on own-IP games.
de Masi talked about "the intersection of social and massively multiplayer online style gaming for smartphones" as a big focus for Glu in 2010, too.
It's a big shift from the company's traditional strategy of concentrating on big branded titles in the J2ME and BREW worlds.
Glu will also continue its expansion into social gaming. "We’re working to augment our product, team and function by adding strong personnel with expertise in persistent state gaming, social gaming and analytics," said de Masi.
However, the shift is going to take time. Glu CFO Eric Ludwig predicted that the company's revenues for Q1 this year will be between $15 million and $15.5 million, with smartphone revenues growing by just 6.4% sequentially as part of that.
