Rovio, developer of the immensely popular Angry Birds series, announced that their earnings for 2011 topped $100 million resulting in over $65 million in net profit, up from approximately $10 million in revenue from 2010. Merchandise sales alone accounted for 30 percent of that. Those numbers don’t even include their newest, record-breaking creation, Angry Birds Space, which released earlier this year and gained over 50 million downloads in 35 days.
Rovio’s 2011 lineup consisted of Angry Birds, Angry Bird Seasons, and the movie-themed Angry Birds Rio, all of which raked in almost 650 million downloads in 2011.
Rovio was founded in 2003 and didn’t gain a lot of popularity until late 2009 when they launched Angry Birds for the iPhone. Now, the Angry Birds series has seen over 1 billion total downloads and around 200 million active users as of the end of 2011. Rovio’s many versions of Angry Birds have stayed at the top of the charts ever since their releases.
Rovio expects 2012 to be another great year for them. CEO Mikael Hed says that they “are very optimistic about 2012 due to significant investments in product development, cutting-edge branding, brand protection and corporate infrastructure.” Hed also said that Rovio needs to be “continuously developing new and innovative products and services” in order to ensure continuous success.
Hed mentioned that they plan on releasing several more games in 2012, including a non-Angry Birds title called Amazing Alex, which will be a reboot of Casey’s Contraptions, a long lost mobile game from developers Snappy Touch and Mystery Coconut. It turns out, Rovio bought the IP to the game, so they’re currently re-working and re-branding the title to fit within their style. Amazing Alex will be released in approximately two months and will include an educational element, as well as being a fun and entertaining game about constructing Rube Goldberg-esque contraptions to complete a variety of objectives.
Because of Rovio’s immense success, the company is also preparing itself for an IPO next year, according to Reuters who cited that Anders Lindeberg, Rovio’s head of investor relations, said that the Finnish-based company is “is preparing itself and getting ready” for a stock market listing in either New York or Hong Kong.
Will 2012 be another great year for Rovio like CEO Mikael Hed claims? It certainly looks that way so far, but only time will tell to see if the developer still has it in them to come through with fun and entertaining titles.
Image Credit: Yaniv Golan
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