Finland-based game developer Supercell experienced its first-ever drop in profit partly due to falling revenue for one if its biggest hits, Clash of Clans.

Net profit for 2017 was €729 million, down 20.5 per cent compared with 2016, on revenue of €2.1 billion, a decrease of 14 per cent year-on-year.

In a statement, CEO Ilkka Paananen said: “Our headline numbers for the year are not as high as last year, as we did not release a new game globally.”

At a news conference, Reuters quoted him as saying: “Our games are one year older, and in the West, they are not growing at the pace they used to”. In 2018, Supercell plans to focus on China and Asia for new growth opportunities

While the company did not disclose sales figures for its games, Paananen said the revenue drop was most significant for Clash of Clans.

Supercell was bought by Chinese internet giant Tencent in 2016 at a valuation of €10 billion.

Its strategy is to focus on a handful of high quality games rather than spreading itself across a number of titles. Currently, its portfolio includes Clash of Clans, Clash Royale, Boom Beach and Hay Day, which have around 100 million daily active players in total.

A significant amount of its revenue comes from in-app purchases.

Research company App Annie ranked Supercell the world’s fifth-biggest mobile game publisher in 2017, down from the number two spot in 2016.

The company announced it launched a new game, Brawl Stars, in Canada in beta, the company’s first beta launch since Clash Royale. Brawl Stars is a real-time strategy game which Paananen said was “the first game of its kind on mobile”.