Sega Sammy aims for 40 per cent profit jump by 2007
Sammy and Sega have announced their projections for growth over the coming years, with the companies, who will merge at the start of next month, hoping to increase profits by 40 per cent by FY 2007.
Sammy and Sega have announced their projections for growth over the coming years, with the companies, who will merge at the start of next month, hoping to increase profits by 40 per cent by FY 2007.
The firms are hoping that their new holding company, Sega Sammy Holdings, will have a group profit of 68 billion Yen (509 million Euro) on sales of 625 billion Yen (4.7 billion Euro) in the year ending March 2007 - representing significant growth over the projections for FY2005.
In the current year, Sega Sammy Holdings expects to report profit for the combined companies of 47.5 billion Yen (356 million Euro) on sales of 520 billion Yen (3.9 billion Euro) - so the 2007 projection represents 40 per cent growth in profits on 20 per cent growth in sales.
Interestingly, the companies hope to fuel this growth at least partially through expansion in Europe - with mergers and acquisitions of game studios in this territory being named as a key policy for Sega Sammy going forward.
While these figures will make Sega Sammy Holdings into one of the largest companies in the games industry, it's worth noting that only about a quarter of the sales figure (130 billion Yen, just shy of a billion Euro, this year) actually come from games, with the remainder coming from Sammy's pachinko gambling machine business.
Another interesting comment which came out of the pre-merger conference hosted by the two companies was from Sammy chairman Hajime Satomi, who will also head up Sega Sammy Holdings from the start of next month, on the topic of the reaction of Sega's development studios to the merger.
Several media sources had speculated that there would be an exodus of development talent from Sega ahead of the Sammy merger - but almost a full year after Sammy bought its original stake in Sega, and only days before the merger is completed, this hasn't yet happened.
"I thought it was probable," Satomi admitted at the conference in Tokyo, "but it hasn't happened at all yet. We're very much being welcomed."