2020 results: Valeria Alfimova from Appodeal Stack on the main things for the year
She talked about trends in the mobile gaming market and plans for the next yearValeria Alfimova, Chief Revenue Officer at Appodeal Stack.
Valeria Alfimova
How was 2020 for the company?
2020 turned out to be one of the most successful years in the company's history for us: the holding's revenue increased significantly compared to the previous year, we completed the development of a new product (a single platform combining business analytics, procurement automation and monetization), and also began the relocation of the Minsk team to Poland.
In addition to the pandemic, we faced a revolution in Belarus — this was perhaps the greatest shock for the team. However, despite the complete transition to remoteness and the tense situation in the country, our team continued to give 100%. The processes did not stop for a minute, the guys supported each other, although it was not easy for everyone.
I am proud to say that we have assembled a team of cool professionals who were not afraid of difficulties.
What new trends in your niche do you consider worth paying attention to?
In addition to the active growth of the mobile games market as a whole (72% of mobile revenue this year was generated by games), at the level of micro-trends, we can note the growth of puzzles, board games and solitaire.
It is especially interesting that with the tightening of the lockdown /increase in screentime, downloads of hyper-casual games increased by 90%, but their revenue did not show a proportional increase in downloads.
At the same time, the revenue of casual games increased significantly (by 15%). This trend is likely to lead to more and more publishers increasing their casual portfolio. I also expect the emergence of an increasing number of high-quality indie projects focused on the subgenres listed above.
What new market trends would you note in general?
This year, a whole series unfolded on the market: fluctuations related to COVID-19 and IDFA had an ambiguous effect on the purchasing and monetization strategies of mobile games. On the one hand, the falling CPM due to the pandemic indicated the impossibility of scaling procurement strategies, on the other hand, everyone was trying to buy for the future in order to provide themselves with a long tail of sales until the IDFA came into force. I don't think I could name a more relevant macro trend - the continuation of this series in 2021 will be exciting.
What will be the stake in the development of the company in 2021?
We will continue to work on improving our platform, which was launched for beta testers in 2020.
This platform allows you to track all the most valuable top—level metrics of a mobile application, and most importantly, predict LTV and ROAS for purchases by cohorts, plus find the right balance when developing UA and monetization strategies.
In addition, we are working to lower the entry threshold for talented applications through our Accelerator program, which includes an educational block, as well as assistance in monetization, UA and investment search (we received several thousand applications last year, we plan to continue recruiting this year).
