Angry Birds Maker Rovio Hopes To Offer IPO In 2013, Would Be Worth Billions
Rovio was founded in 2003 but it wasn’t until several years ago that the company reached true success on the heals of its uber-popular Angry Birds game and now the company is planning to capitalize on the success of that game to launch an initial public offering (IPO) in 2013.
Angry Birds has become the most popular mobile game of all time, downloaded more than 800 million times with more than 200 million monthly users at the end of 2011.
The Finnish video game developer has also been successful in branding its most popular game, signing deals for toys, board games, playground sets and various other products that now carry the Angry Birds game, a Hollywood created animated movie is also in the works which will be released at theaters around the world.
In 2011 Rovio reported profits of $48 million before tax with a very impressive 64 percent margin, up from $10 million in 2010. The company currently works with almost every major mobile and browser platform except for Windows Phone 7.
In the meantime Rovio recently announced that it would release a new non-Angry Birds title in 2012 that it hopes will gain the same type of attention.
With Rovio sales increasing ten-fold in 2011 the company is valued at nearly $9 billion.
Rovio was founded by three students after they won a mobile game development competition held by Nokia and Hewlett-Packard. In a twist of fortunes if Rovio goes public and is valued at $9 billion it will be worth just $2.1 billion less than Nokia’s recent $11.9 billion valuation.
Do you think Rovio is worth $9 billion on the strength of Angry Birds?
