Gameloft reports $25M in App Store revenue

French mobile game developer sees massive profits from iPhone, can't wait for iPad

Gameloft, a French publisher and video game developer, reported in its 2009 financial results that last year it made €17.6 million (almost $25 million) in revenue from its iPhone app sales alone. That's a 231% year-over-year boost.

The company's revenues totaled to €122 million (a little over $170 million), an 11% increase over 2008.

According to those numbers, Gameloft received about 14.5% of its revenues from just App Store sales. At this stage, 94% of the company's revenues come from mobile games, with the rest coming from console games.

Needless to say, Gameloft has enjoyed the soaring popularity of gaming on the iPhone and is doubly excited for the prospects of creating games for Apple's recently announced iPad. Anyone who suspected that games on mobile devices were a dead end with no chance for big profits was sadly mistaken.

"This will go beyond being just a bigger iPhone or a smaller laptop. iPad fills the gap between the two," said Gameloft CEO Michel Guillemot. "It's quite possible for us to do iPad-specific games - stay tuned."

Gameloft senior business development manager Mark Hickey had joined Electronic Arts' vice president of worldwide studios Travis Boatman onstage at the iPad event to show off the gaming capabilities of the new device, so it's clear that the both companies will be bringing loads of games to the new platform.

Gameloft is one of the most active game developers for the iPhone. It just released Pocket Chef, an action game in which users follow recipes, flipping eggs and grilling meats.