Club Penguin, the online hangout for kids was purchased today by Disney for $350 MM. That price could rise to $700 MM based on growth targets and performance.
The site was started and owned by Canada's New Horizon Interactive Ltd. According to comScore Media Metrix, one of the leading Web tracking sites, Club Penguin nearly tripled in usage over the past year to 4.7 million unique U.S. visitors in June. The site has over 12 million registered kids of whom 700,000 are paying customers.
On the Club Penguin Blog , site management reassured its user base that:
As far as the game is concerned, not much will change. Everyone on the Club Penguin Team will continue to work hard to make Club Penguin the best it can be. Our hope is that you don’t even notice a difference unless it means we’re making something better! Please let us know what you think and feel free to ask any questions. We’ll try to answer as many as we can!
On the site kids pay $5 a month to play games and accumulate gold coins and tokens. Each member has an avatar in the shape of a Penguin.
Club Penguin is one of a crop of fast-growing online sites appealing to kids between the ages of 6-12. Webkinz has also shown strong growth makes its money from the sale of stuffed animals that are an entree into its virtual world. I have seen stores stripped clean of Webkinz in minutes and parents have driven miles to find an available stuffed animal.
Club Penguin is one of the more successful web 2.0 companies and grew largely by word of mouth, without any significant advertising expenditure.
Additional sources of information:
Disney Acquires Club Penguin for $350M - Forbes.com
Disney buys Club Penguin - pspnet.net
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