Valve more profitable per employee than Apple

Valve boss says company is more profitable than Apple and Google, 'per employee'
Valve boss says company is more profitable than Apple and Google, 'per employee'

Steam owns up to 70 per cent of the lucrative PC download market and is 'per employee' more profitable than tech giants Apple and Google.

A new report outlined in a recent Forbes profile notes that Steam controls between half and 70 per cent of the PC game download market, worth in the region of $4 billion per year.

Per-employee profits

Valve boss Gabe Newell revealed that Steam was incredibly profitable for the company and made the claim that profit-per-employee was higher at the games developer, which employs 250 full-time members of staff, than it was at Apple and Google.

Over 6 million users download games and access their saved games via Steam on a daily basis.

With over 1,200 games already available via Valve's service and over 30 million registered users, added to the fact that publishers make around a 70 per cent clear profit (compared with around 30 per cent via 'traditional' high street retail) it's not difficult to see how Steam has quickly grown into such a success for Valve.

Valve is valued at somewhere between $2 billion and $4 billion, according to the latest report in Forbes.

Via Eurogamer and Forbes.com

Adam Hartley