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Angry Bird publisher profits halved as company plans for future
As Rovio plans for (or fights, depending on perspective) the future, the company's profits took a hit for the 2013 calendar year. The Angry Bird house's net profits were slashed in half to €26.9 million ($37.2M), but important to note here is that the company's sales remained stable at €156 million ($216M), a slight increase from the €152.2 million in 2012.
Rovio CFO Herkko Soininen explained the profit reduction as part of the company's "foundation-building year," as it invested in new business areas like animation, video distribution, spinoffs... more spinoffs, and other things outside of selling Angry Bird games at $1 a pop.
"Building on top of our games business, where we moved into free-to-play, Rovio set its foot strongly into the entertainment business. In 2013 we formed a world-class movie animation production team in Los Angeles that is already working on the first Angry Birds feature film, to be globally premiered in July 2016," said CEO Mikael Hed.
Once upon a time the great and powerful Yogurt taught us that merchandising is "where the real money from the movie is made." Change movie to video game and you've got the Rovio business strategy pretty much figured out.
