EA to acquire Glu Mobile for $2.1bn – move is a huge boost to EA’s mobile segment

EA today whipped out its wallet and paid a cool $2.1bn for Glu Mobile, the highly successful mobile games developer, which has 800 staff across five locations in the US, Canada and India.

Glu Mobile is home to these titles (in order of earnings): Design Home, MLB Tap Sports Baseball, Covet Fashion, Kim Kardashian Hollywood, Diner Dash, Disney’s Sorcerer’s Arena, plus WWE Universe (in soft launch), Deer Hunter, and more. It’s an impressively eclectic mixture.

EA paid $12.50 per share for teh company, a 36 per cent premium on its price on teh 5th of February, all financed out of EA’s cash to hand. With the transaction expected to close in calendar Q2 of 2021 subject to all the usual approvals.

EA notes in its release that Glu Mobile booking had risen consistently year-on-year over the last few years. $320m, $385m, $423m and $544m (with the final figure tracking the last 12 months rather than a specific year).

That $544m will add a huge chunk to EA’s current $779m over the last 12 months for mobile titles, including Simcity, FIFA, Star Wars and Need for Speed titles. Strategically it notes that it can learn from MLB Tap Baseball as a successful template for its sports titles on mobile.

Obviously it’s an expensive acquisition, but the synergies do look to make sense and the player base largely compliments EA’s own more core gaming market users.