China has gone ga-ga over online gaming. In fact, IDC projects that the market will zoom from $815 million in 2006 to $3 billion by 2011. One of the leaders in the space is Giant Interactive. And, this week, the company filed to go public.
Giant's main game – ZT Online – was the most popular in China last year. The compound annual quarterly growth, in terms of users, has been 39.6%. As of the end of September, there were 481,054 average concurrent users.
Giant has a team of 140 game developers, which seem to have a eye for its target market (players between the ages of 18 and 40). What's more, the firm plans to launch a new game in the fourth quarter.
For the first six months of 2007, Giant's revenues were $90.3 million and net income was a juicy $67.3 million
The lead underwriters on the IPO include Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MER) and UBS AG (USA) (NYSE: UBS). The proposed ticker is "GA."
The prospectus is located at the SEC website. Also, if you want to check out other IPOs, click here.
Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook
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