Angry Birds developer may go public with a valuation of $2 billion

As a comparison, even the currently popular "Glory of the King" mentioned above has more than 200 million registrations, which is still far from the glory of "Angry Birds".

Original title: "Angry Birds" developer may go public, valued at US$2 billion

. Not long ago, a hot article circulated on the Internet pushed "Glory of the King" to the forefront, but also demonstrated "Glory of the King"'s representative status in the mobile games world.

Back in 2010, the game that best represented the operating direction of large-screen multi-touch smartphones was Angry Birds. With its relatively exquisite pictures and simple and interesting operations,"Angry Birds" was popular in the era when contemporary smartphones were just emerging. The Finnish developer behind it, Rovio, also made a lot of money.

Although "Angry Birds" is no longer as dazzling as it used to be, Rovio is still very popular in the capital market. According to people familiar with the matter, Rovio plans to launch an IPO as early as next month, when the company could be valued at US$2 billion.

People familiar with the matter also revealed that Rovio could raise US$400 million in the local securities market, but Rovio has not yet made a final decision.

Carnegie Bank, Danske Bank and Deutsche Bank, which advised Rovio's IPO during the revelation, declined to comment on the news.

"Angry Birds" hit the AppStore in 2009, and on its second anniversary, its downloads reached 500 million; in 2012, this number doubled again; as of March this year, the game has been downloaded on all platforms The cumulative number of downloads has exceeded 3.5 billion times, making it the most downloaded free value-added game in history, which has also brought considerable revenue to developer Rovio. As a comparison, even the currently popular "Glory of the King" mentioned above has more than 200 million registrations, which is still far from the glory of "Angry Birds".

After the success of "Angry Birds", Rovio chanted the slogan of creating "Disney 2.0" and subsequently launched the "Angry Birds" movie, which grossed US$347 million in box office. It is considered to have begun the path of diversification. In addition, Rovio plans to continue to launch new games this year and will also launch a sequel to the movie. Rovio CEO Katie Levoranta said:

The performance of the game business and film business has brought significant improvements to our brand. We have clear priorities and goals, and we gain our own experience.

It seems that Rovio's numbers are gorgeous, but Rovio and Angry Birds only enjoyed their glory until 2012, and revenue declined for three consecutive years. This led to Rovio laying off more than 300 people over two years. Just in February this year, Rovio announced that it would lay off 10%, saying it was part of a move to focus on mobile games. Rovio currently has 476 employees, and its size has shrunk by nearly half since its peak.

What's more, Angry Birds also ranks first on the application blacklist of major companies around the world due to data security issues. Angry Birds is also listed as the culprit in Australia, the United States and the government in MobileIron's biannual mobile security and risk assessment report.

Fortunately, judging from the 2016 results data Rovio released during the GDC meeting, they have finally turned a profit.

After divesting its business, Rovio generated revenue of 190 million euros (approximately US$203 million) in 2016, a 34% increase from revenue of approximately US$150 million in 2015. Rovio's pre-tax profit in 2016 was 17.5 million euros (approximately US$18.5 million), and the company lost 21 million euros (US$22 million) in 2015.

Editor: Mary