THQ (Nasdaq: THQI) has reported is first quarter earnings for the three months ending March 31. The results are good—first quarter revenue increased 16.9 percent year-on-year to $172 million. The company registered almost $6.5 million in profit for the first quarter, compared to a loss of $8.65 million for the corresponding quarter a year earlier. THQ also released its annual figures, showing revenue growth of 27.3 percent year-on-year to $1.027 billion, the first time the company passed a billion in revenue. Net income more than doubled year-on-year to $68.038 million.

Mobile falls: However, THQ is still seeing its mobile game business plummet. In the first quarter of this year THQ received 2.5 percent of its revenue from “wireless”, compared to 5.5 percent a year earlier (its entire handheld division fell).  For the full year the revenue share from wireless fell from 4.5 percent in 2006 to 2.6 percent in 2007. Some back-of-an-envelope calculations show that THQ’s revenuein Q1 from mobile games fell 52.8 percent year-on-year to about $4.30 million, down from about $8.14 million a year earlier. For the full year revenue from mobile fell 26.4 percent to about $26.70 million, from $36.30 million in 2006. THQ had previously forecast a growth of 45 percent wireless net revenues for the fiscal year 2008, which starts now. During the conference call CFO Ed Zinser reiterated forecasts of growth in wireless revenues “driven by games based on Ratatouille, Star Wars, Stuntman and Worms”.

Universomo: President and CEO Brian Farrell gave THQ’s reasons for buying Universomo, as I surmised it was the porting solution that clinched the deal. “It really is...getting quality products to market faster at a more reasonable cost and importing all the different handsets very efficiently. That’s really what Universomo and their technology brings to us.”

Earnings Release | Call Transcript

• THQ Acquires Finnish Mobile Games Developer
• THQ’s Wireless Earnings Keep Dropping