Rovio’s 2011 Numbers

In a statement published today, game developer Rovio reported its official financial results for the full calendar year 2011. The company reported revenue of €75.4 million ($106,3 million), with earnings before tax of €48,0 million ($67.6 million) or 64% of total revenue in 2011.

Rovio CEO Mikael Hed said:

The heavy investments made in 2011 to all business areas will be seen in future products. To ensure continuous success we need to be creative and stay focused on entertaining our millions of fans by continuously developing new and innovative products and services.

This is the first time Rovio, maker of multi-platform hit Angry Birds, is reporting annual results, with speculation already suggesting the company may be considering an IPO in its future. At the end of April, Rovio announced the latest entry in the Angry Birds franchise, Space, had become the fastest growing mobile game ever with over 50 million downloads in 35 days. Besides raw numbers, Angry Birds gained the appreciation of several key figures of the gaming industry, including Nintendo’s game design guru Shigeru Miyamoto.

Other interesting tidbits have been revealed in today’s statement: for instance, Rovio hired 196 people in 2011, and the total number of game downloads reached 648 million by the end of the year, with over 200 million monthly active users (Rovio publishes for a variety of platforms including iOS, Android, OS X, Windows, and Sony PSP). These numbers, however, were generated by three games (Angry Birds, Angry Birds Rio, Angry Birds Seasons), whilst other revenue came from Merchandising and Licensing, as Rovio is working with over 200 partners to develop new products for the Angry Birds franchise.