Angry Birds developer Rovio posts Q4 profit drop
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FINNISH game maker Rovio, best known for its Angry Birds video game franchise, posted a fall in fourth-quarter profit on Thursday (Feb 9) and said the global mobile game market declined for the first time in 2022.
“The market normalised after supercharged growth during the onset of Covid-19 in 2020 and 2021, when the global market grew annually by 30.1 per cent and 12.5 per cent, respectively,” the company said.
Rovio, which is currently the target of a takeover offer from US-listed rival Playtika, said game developers’ revenues were also dented by privacy changes on Apple’s iPhone.
“Apple’s app tracking transparency framework has heavily impacted game publishers’ ability to target high-value players,” the game maker said.
Rovio reported a 55 per cent decline in adjusted operating profit for the fourth quarter to 5.9 million euros (S$8.4 million). Its revenue declined 2.5 per cent.
The company said its games outperformed the market, and explained that its low profit in 2022 was due to the write-down of a subsidiary that tried to develop Hatch, a 5G gaming platform that never resulted in commercial success. It added that the mobile gaming market showed signs of stabilising towards the end of 2022, and added that it was expecting flat revenue and profit development this year.
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Alex Pelletier-Normand, chief executive of Rovio, said: “After five consecutive quarters of decline, it was encouraging to see the US market turn to slight growth.”
On Monday, the company said it had initiated a strategic review and entered “preliminary non-binding discussions” to consider Playtika’s offer for its shares. REUTERS
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