Keywords revenues grow to €24m for first half of 2015

Revenues for QA and localisation firm Keywords increased by 74 per cent year-on-year to €23.9m for the first half of 2015.

The rise comes on the back of yet more investment and acquisitions for the company. Earlier this year it bought customer care Alchemic Dream, localisation provider Reverb Localização, audio recording and localisation outfit Kite Team and art outsourcing studio Liquid Development.

Recent games it has worked on include Skylanders Supercharger, Batman: Arkham Knight, Mortal Combat X, Project Cars and Mad Max. It has also picked up new clients such as Oculus, Amazon and Gearbox.

Keywords noted a particular growth area for the company was in its art services, where it is working at capacity despite hiring 100 more staff to fill these roles. The firm also reported a return by studios to more normal production patterns following a period of some uncertainty following the launch of the PS4 and Xbox One.

“Our Art creation business in particular has benefitted from very strong demand in that market,” said Keywords CEO Andrew Day.

“The acquisition of Liquid Development in August this year has both provided additional in-house capacity and has also brought much greater flexibility in resourcing which will allow us to flex up and down with the demands of individual projects in much the same way that we do in our other service lines.

“The rhythm of game production and release schedules has returned to a more normal pattern following the disruption caused by the release of new games consoles in November 2013. As such, we are seeing a return to more traditional trading patterns in our audio, testing and localisation businesses. This, combined with the benefits of our recent acquisitions, organic investment and client wins leaves us well placed for the second half, with the outturn for the full year anticipated to be in-line with the board’s expectations.”