Maker of Angry Birds app soars to higher sales
ROVIO Entertainment, the creator of the iconic Angry Birds app, yesterday reported a tenfold leap in sales.
Full year revenue grew to €75.4m (£60.8m) – compared to estimated sales of £6.2m in 2010 – while pre-tax earnings increased to €48m.
This is the first time Rovio has published its full year fiscal results, heating up speculation that the gaming company is heading towards an IPO.
The nine-year-old Finnish start-up, which unleashed Angry Birds in December 2009, said yesterday its finances were good enough for a flotation. Its chief marketing officer Peter Vesterbacka, nicknamed Mighty Eagle, hinted a few months ago at a 2013 IPO in either New York or Hong Kong.
The number of Rovio game downloads hit 648m in the year, with active monthly users reaching 200m.
This compares to Farmville maker Zynga’s 240m average monthly users at the end of 2011, and is almost a quarter of the number of people using Facebook every month.
The number of employees leapt from 28 to 224 during the year.
“The strong growth in revenue clearly demonstrates the popularity of the Angry Birds brand,” said Rovio chief executive Mikael Hed.
He added: “The heavy investments made in 2011 to all business areas will be seen in future products.”
Last March, Rovio raised $42m from Skype founder Niklas Zennstroem’s venture capital firm Atomico and Accel, the top outside investor in Facebook.
“We are very optimistic about 2012 due to significant investments in product development, cutting-edge branding, brand protection and corporate infrastructure,” Hed said.
Sales of new devices are the main driver for downloads and Rovio is expecting a solid growth accordingly.
Samsung released its latest Galaxy offering last week, while Apple is widely expected to launch the iPhone 5 this year.