Online gaming providers GigaMedia see a bright future for themselves in 2011. With the first payment from new Everest Poker partners BetClic providing GigaMedia with a “strong cashed-up balance sheet”, CEO Arthur Wang says the company is “restructured and revitalized. Over the last few years, we’ve invested in both a content pipeline and our delivery platform.” In other words, enough with the preparing, let’s get executing.
In Europe, Wang believes economic conditions have improved sufficiently to help GigaMedia improve its market share in France and beyond. In Asia, new products – such as a Flash-based version of the company’s Mahjong offering and a partnership with MTV on a SpongeBob SquarePants game – are in the works. The company also hopes to enter some new territories in the region.
But first, they need to fix China. GigaMedia is currently its litigation with the company’s former China head over his alleged “attempts to usurp company assets.” The company is keen to avoid being “adversely affected” by these illegal actions, but that ship appears to have sailed. In Q3 2010, GigaMedia posted revenues of $7.8m, a 28% drop over the previous quarter. For this, President/COO Thomas Hui blamed “deconsolidation of our China operations resulting from our ongoing legal dispute.” Unless the matter is favorably resolved, GigaMedia expects a “significant impairment charge” in Q4. And not the good kind of impaired, neither.
