Stay at home lifts Angry Birds maker’s second-quarter profit

• Finnish video game developer’s revenues fall 3.6% due to lower movie revenue

Dubai: Rovio Entertainment, maker of “Angry Birds” mobile game series, witnessed a 160 per cent jump in second-quarter adjusted operating profit due to stable revenues of key games, increased player engagement due to Covid-19 and lower level of user acquisition.

The Finnish video game developer’s adjusted operating profit rose to 13.8 million euros from 5.3 million a year ago but its revenues fell 3.6 per cent to 69.2 million euros due to lower movie revenue.

“We had an eventful second quarter and reached record high games revenue driven by the strong performance of our key games,” Kati Levoranta, CEO of Rovio Entertainment, said.

Moreover, she said that Rovio’s largest game, Angry Birds 2, grew quarter-on-quarter due to game updates, seasonal events and increased player engagement that can be attributed to Covid-19, especially in April.

Overall impact

“The overall impact of Covid-19, which was visible in a higher level of downloads, daily active users and player engagement, peaked late April. From May onwards these KPIs started to normalize. At the same time, successful game improvements have led to somewhat higher monetisation compared to the beginning of the year and stable revenues in our key games,” she said.

During the first half of this year, the company has seen heightened viewership and engagement for “Angry Birds” content across all major digital platforms.

The “Angry Birds Movie 2” was amongst the most watched movies on Netflix during the spring.

“In June, we signed a contract with IMG Licensing Worldwide for exclusive global representation of Angry Birds consumer products and location-based entertainment licensing.

With their extensive global operations, supported by front and back-office resources across geographies and product categories, we believe IMG can help us build an exciting offering over the coming years to reach our fans with high-quality consumer products across the globe,” Levoranta said.

During 2020, she said that the company aims to launch 1-3 new games but the timing of new game launches depends on how the games progress in soft launch.

Rovio had launched one new game, Small Town Murders in June, and has currently two games in soft launch and several games in different phases of production.