Angry Birds maker Rovio's third quarter profit jumps (updated)

Rovio Entertainment Oyj

28/10/2021 07:21

(Adds details, background)
    Oct 28 (Reuters) - Finnish game maker Rovio  ROVIO.HE , best
known for its Angry Birds franchise, on Thursday reported a rise
in its third quarter operating profit, boosted by a strong
performance by Angry Birds Friends and steady sales of its other
live games.
    Rovio said its underlying operating profit rose 11.6% to
14.3 million euros ($16.59 million) in the July-September period
compared with a year earlier.
    "Our key live games continued to perform strongly in Q3.
Angry Birds Friends kept on growing and had its best quarter
since Q2-2017," Chief Executive Officer Alex Pelletier-Normand
said in a statement.
    Sales in Rovio's games division, its main source of revenue,
rose 6.9% to 68.6 million euros from last year, though it was
muted by reduced marketing spending on Small Town Murders, which
was launched last year, and Darkfire Heroes, released in April.
    The Finnish company, which listed its shares in 2017, had
seen a jump in revenues and player engagement during the
stay-at-home period in 2020, but the effects started normalising
towards the end of the first year of the pandemic.
    The company also said it was still targeting growth in the
mobile gaming market through investments and new acquisitions.
    Rovio agreed in August to buy Turkey-based game studio Ruby
Games to expand its geographical footprint and to add so-called
hyper-casual games - easy-to-play mobile games making most of
their revenues through ads - to its portfolio.
    
($1 = 0.8621 euros)

 (Reporting by Milla Nissi in Gdansk
Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
 ((Milla.Nissi@thomsonreuters.com; +48 58 769 6566;))