By Lee Wei Lian June sixteen, 2010 KUALA LUMPUR, June sixteen - internet gaming group CIB expects cash to grow by about fifty % this year thanks to rising demand. The CIB group, which is predicted to list on the ACE market by Aug via a reverse takeover of Hdm-Carlaw Firm Berhad, is predicting a compound yearly rate of growth of thirty percent over the following 3 years. The listed entity will be CIB Interactive which is the holding company of CIB Development Sdn Bhd and CIB Net Station Sdn Bhd. The group had a gross turnover of RM13.7 million last year and expects it to extend to between RM18 and RM19 million this year with approximately RM4.5 million in profit giving it a net margin of roughly thirty percent. The company announces it has got a growing buyer base which now stands at 5 million customers and is adding as much as fifty thousand to sixty thousand casual game-players a month. Set up in 2003 by Alan Ku, CIB carries about 10 internet game titles , for example shooting and dancing games, that are free to play and it makes cash from virtual items that gameplayers purchase to make themselves more competitive. The standard user spends RM75 a month purchasing virtual items but the things can be as inexpensive as five sen.

"For the shooting game, as little as RM3 can make you fully set up for a few days including grenades, armour

and boots,"announced Ku. Customers buy the things thru pre paid top-up cards and CIB has a couple of points of sale channels including 7-11 outlets, cybercafeacute;s, bookstores and it is expecting to expand to gas stations, card sales as well as online payment portal Paypal. Ku feels assured that CIB will be well placed to stay before rivals as the start up cost can be high and landing pressing titles isn't very easy. "Royalty and licensing is the key cost and it could be a barrier to entry,"declared Ku. " Massive game publishers would like to see how well you do first before giving you the license for their games.". Ku announces that CIB ultimately intends to tap the South East Asian web gaming market which he guesses to be worth RM1.2 bln. Ku also wants to CIB to move into developing its own games and may tap into government content development funds to do so. "we've got a big pool of supporters and it's a large customer database,"claimed Ku.