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Published on January 15, 2008

Well-known local game developer CyberPla-net plans to list in the Market for Alternative Investment this year and move up to the Stock Exchange of Thailand in three years.

Going public is aimed at supporting the company's ambition of becoming a major player in the global console-game market.

Chief marketing officer Chanin Wanijwongse said this was the year for upgrading and strengthening the company's financial status, so it could foray into the international market aggressively.

It will increase its registered capital from Bt100 million next quarter with fresh investments from a couple of new financial institution partners.

The funds raised will be used mainly for global marketing throughout the year and for setting up two representative offices next year, in the US and the UK.

After the company shifted its strategy a year ago to exporting games for casual consoles, sales shot up 40 per cent to Bt95 million. It believes exports will become its biggest revenue spinner this year, generating 70 per cent of its total target of Bt130 million. Next year, about 90 per cent of the company's total revenue will come from the global market.

Domestic revenue, which account for 30 per cent of the total, comes from sales of PC games, mobile games and mobile applications.

CyberPlanet is the first home-bred game company to succeed financially in the international market.

Chanin said last year's export revenue came from only five game titles for the Sony PlayStation 2. For this year, CyberPlanet plans to release many more game titles and serve more platforms, including 10 games for the PlayStation 2, 20 for the Nintendo DS and eight for the Nintendo Wii. It also plans to increase the number of global publishers helping it distribute games in the global market - especially the US and Europe - to eight.

"In this year's plan, we'll gain much more revenue from the global market. There are a lot of opportunities in the global casual-console-game market, especially in the two main markets: the United States and Europe. They are our two main target markets," he said.

The casual-console-game market is quite huge, he said.

The three main device platforms that the company focuses on - the Sony PlayStation 2, the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Wii - have between 7 million and 8 million units, 12 million units and 65 million units, respectively. The market is growing 20-30 per cent a year.

"We're also eyeing other platforms, such as the Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation 3. By next year, some games may be launched to serve these two platforms if they expand to casual games," Chanin said.

The company recently increased its game-production capability with the establishment of its new game studio with game development facilities for its 40-50 developers, including game designers, graphics designers and programmers.

"We keep up the quality of games and game production with an annual research-and-development budget of Bt5 million to Bt10 million and an annual production budget of Bt30 million to Bt40 million," Chanin said. "For the local market, we'll maintain annual growth of 20-30 per cent. We expect a lot from the global market and will use Thailand as a manufacturing centre, then export worldwide. We wish to see our products carry a 'Made in Thailand' label and distributed internationally. My dream is to see CyberPlanet become an international company with representative offices around the world," he added.

Asina Pornwasin

The Nation