How Rovio made money on IP Angry Birds in the last 10 years
Now the main driver of Finnish Rovio’s income is games. But there was a time when licensing brought half of Rovio’s revenue. Stephen Porter, its marketing director, told about how the company’s gaming and licensing business was changing.
Angry BirdsPorter made this report at Casual Connect Europe, according to Pocket Gamer.
- In 2010, Rovio games were downloaded 50 million times. Her biggest hit was Angry Birds, released a year earlier. 40 thousand products based on this IP were released under the license. At that time, the company employed only 28 people.
- In 2011, Rovio’s total annual revenue was $114 million. 70% of revenue came from games whose total downloads reached 500 million. 30% came from brand licensing. The number of products sold under the Angry Birds license for the year reached 30 million.
- In 2012, the company already had 200 licensing partners. Among them were NASA and Star Wars. Rovio managed to sell 416 million products under license, which brought a 45% share of revenue. According to Porter, it was at that time that Angry Birds were at the peak of popularity. At the same time, the studio’s game downloads exceeded a billion.
- Before interest in Angry Birds began to gradually decline, the license division of Rovio turned out to be almost the main source of its income. In 2013, the company received 47% of the sales of goods under license. And, according to Porter, “slightly lost focus.”
- In 2014, the business of Rovio, which already had 800 employees, went into decline. The company actively sold the rights to manufacture any products under the aging Angry Birds brand: HDMI cables, adhesive tape, even spinners. Despite this, 295 million licensed goods were sold in a year — less than before. At the same time, the share of licensing also fell to 26%. In total, the company earned $175 million for the year.
- The “black Year” for Rovio was 2015. Revenues began to fall: the company earned $158 million, and licensing became responsible for only 20% of revenue. Rovio had to reduce the staff to 470 people. Now the company was seriously concerned that the mobile audience was losing interest in it.
“Angry Birds in the cinema”In the same year, Rovio released Angry Birds 2 on the market. It was destined to become a new hit, albeit not immediately.
- A year later, her popularity was positively affected by the release of “Angry Birds in the cinema”. The replenishment of the Rovio fritupley library and the Angry Birds IP movie led the company to a new phase of growth. The studio gradually shifted its focus back to game development, and brand licensing faded into the background.
- By 2019, the total earnings of Angry Birds 2 reached $281 million. The total downloads of all the studio’s games have crossed the 4.5 billion mark. Rovio’s revenue in 2018 was $312 million — slightly less than in 2017. At the same time, the annual revenue from licensing was $34 million. This is only 11% of Rovio’s total revenue.
- Now the company confidently calls itself primarily a game developer. And, according to Porter, she relies on the quality of the games produced, not on their quantity.
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