Gameloft says it, others reining in Android plans
A Singapore Telecommunications representative displays the HTC Dream phone, which runs Google Inc's Android operating system, during a preview for Reuters in Singapore February 20, 2009.
Credit: Reuters/Vivek Prakash
BARCELONA (Reuters) - French mobile phone games company Gameloft said it and other software developers were cutting back investment in developing games and other applications for Google's Android platform.
Android has won attention in the mobile industry lately, with Motorola and Sony Ericsson choosing it for their new top models.
"We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like ... many others," Gameloft finance director Alexandre de Rochefort said at an investor conference.
Rochefort said the company has cut back on investment mostly due to weaknesses of Android's application store.
"It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue," Rochefort said.
Games for iPhone generated 13 percent of Gameloft's revenue in the last quarter. "We are selling 400 times more games on iPhone than on Android," Rochefort said. (Reporting by Tarmo Virki; Editing by Dan Lalor)
