Electronic Arts Inc (EA) declared they had closed a $2.4 billion deal by purchasing Glu Mobile Inc on Monday.
EA aims to expand its mobile video game business and has been involved in a business expansion spree for quite some time. It has closed some of its biggest deals, including acquiring UK-based Codemasters in December for $1.2 billion.
The deal with Glu Mobile is expected to close by June this year. The video game giant will pay $12.50 in cash for each Glu share. Glu Mobile Inc’s acquisition will help reinforce EA’s mobile gaming platform with the inclusion of some famous games like ‘Kim Kardashian: Hollywood’, ‘Design Home’, ‘Covet Fashion’, ‘Diner Dash’, etc. With the inclusion of Glu’s gaming portfolio, EA hopes to draw female gamers on its platform.
EA Chief Executive Andrew Wilson said in a statement that they wanted Glu Mobile Inc because mobile gaming is the fastest-growing gaming business right now in the world. J.P. Morgan was EA’s chief advisor on this deal, while Glu had financial advisors from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and UBS Securities.
Global gaming revenue grew by 13.3% in 2020 when the world had to resort to virtual entertainment during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. As per analytics firm Newzoo BV, mobile gaming brought in half of the $175 billion expenditure on video game software last year. Video Gaming alone has generated $56.9 billion last year in the US, as per the NPD research firm’s analysis.
US-based Electronic Arts Inc is a game developer and has designed gaming consoles, computer game franchises such as FIFA, Battlefield, and includes several mobile games like ‘Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes’ in its portfolio.
San Francisco-based Glu Mobile Inc was founded in 2004 and is the developer of video games with cross-platform functionality on Android, Windows Phone, Google Chrome, Amazon, Java ME-based devices, etc.
