The Israeli app industry has become one of Israeli high-tech’s sources of pride. The sale of Waze to Google for $1 billion in 2013 was a major high point, but there have been others, such as the sale of Viber to Rakuten in 2014, the sale of Dragonplay to Bally (currently owned by Scientific Games) and even the sale of Playtika to Caesars in 2011.
After these mega-acquisitions, the local market is still generating interest through apps that gain the attention of not only technology giants, but users themselves. Leading app research company App Annie evaluated the top independent app publishers in the market to determine who has the most downloads and who leads in revenue.
Israeli start-up TabTale, developer of mobile games for kids, is the leading independent app distributor in Israel - both in terms of revenue, and downloads. (The App Annie report does not disclose precise numbers, only rankings.) TabTale has already acquired three gaming companies since it was established in 2010 by Sagi Schliesser, Oren Kushnir, and Nir Berejano. To date, the company has developed some 300 games that have been downloaded more than 500 million times. With 40 million active users each month, TabTale enjoys the status of being one of Israel’s leading game companies.
Another noteworthy company is Herzliya-based Plarium, which placed second in the highest-earning Israeli app distributor rankings. The company started out developing games for leading social networks in Russia, and went on from there to Facebook and mobile. The company develops both strategy games and gambling games.
Scoompa placed second in the number-of-download rankings. Scoompa develops and distributes design and photo apps, including a photo collage app, a presentation app, and a photo-editing app for portraits.
Other notable names on the list include: Jelly Button Games, developer of the successful game Pirate Kings; Magisto, developer of an app for creating multimedia video clips; ClearSky, developer of fitness and sport apps such as 5K Runner; a.i.type, developer of a virtual keyboard for mobile devices; Diwip, developer of gambling games and was included in the list, despite the fact that it’s no longer a privately-held company since its sale to Canada’s Imperus for $100 million. Other familiar names include public-transport navigation app Moovit; video messaging app Rounds; and family-video-messaging app Glide.
The report indicates that the majority of the leading app distributors in the top ten are gaming app developers. 45% of downloads of apps developed and distributed by Israeli companies are gaming-related, and 65% the revenue comes from gaming. The majority of the top-ten companies’ activities are based on social gambling games.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on June 4, 2015
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