Igor Bukhman: "We are thinking about the possibility of a merger with someone or an IPO"

Igor Bukhman gave a great interview to the Russian Forbes. The co-founder of Playrix spoke about how the studio managed to become the world’s second gaming company after Tencent, as well as about potentially entering an IPO.The impact of the pandemic on the company’s activities

during the quarantine period, the monthly audience of Playrix games increased by 40 million people in total, and the number of new users increased by 50-100%, depending on the game.

• At the same time, such growth was only from the second half of March to the middle of May, and Buchman calls the effect of the lockdown short-term;for eight months, the company’s turnover amounted to $ 1.75 billion, and for the whole year, Playrix expects figures of $ 2.5 billion;
• The largest markets for Playrix are China, Europe and America.
• They now account for 30% of total revenue, and they have all grown greatly during the pandemic;At the same time, Russia is included only in the remaining 10%.
• “Russia’s share in the structure of our revenue is insignificant,” explains Buchman.About growth rates and comparison with Tencent

“The pandemic played a role, but it was not a decisive factor,” says Buchman, noting that not only Playrix, but also competitors have grown;

• “It should be noted that our second place is by a large margin from the first, Tencent.
• And the companies that are in third and fourth place are close to us in numbers,” Bukhman admits;according to him, Playrix did not do anything specifically to get into second place in the list of the largest gaming companies: “This may be a boring answer, but there is no special secret of growth.
• We believe that free-to-play games can grow in the long run.”About investors and potential IPO

among the potential buyers of Playrix, Buchman calls Tencent and Activision Blizzard.

• At the same time, he notes that the company is not interested in selling now;Buchman says that Playrix wants to either remain a private company or become public: “We are thinking about the possibility of a merger with someone or an IPO.
• But in the near future we are not planning either one or the other. We had a couple of negotiations this year that didn’t go far, nevertheless we are open to these opportunities. We are studying them, but right now we are not actively doing anything”;Buchman admits that recently there have been significantly fewer offers to buy Playrix, because almost no one can afford to buy the company due to the large growth.
• About remote work during the pandemic

due to the fact that Playrix has been practicing remoting for a long time, the company had no problems with a full transition to this format.

• At the time of the outbreak of the pandemic, about 40% of the company’s employees were already working outside the offices;”If a few years ago, when we talked to investors, talked and told them that we had such a distributed job, they were scared, assessed the risks.
• And now it is obvious that this will become the new norm,” explains Buchman.Also on the topic:
  

• Playrix: “More than 11 million people play Gardenscapes every day”Playrix has become the world’s largest mobile game developer after Tencent
• Sensor Tower: downloads of all Playrix games reached 1.1 billion, and revenue — almost $ 5 billion
• Is there any news?