Revenue for licensing business unit up 242.6% thanks to The Angry Birds Movie.
Rovio Entertainment continued its revenue growth in the second quarter of its financial year, with both the games and brand licensing units soaring.
The games business unit increased 65.0% to €61.3 million for the period – this has mostly been attributed to a 30% increase in the number of monthly paying users and a 51% increase in revenue per monthly paying user.
Meanwhile, the brand licensing business unit saw its revenues increase a staggering 242.6% to €24.9 million. The strong revenue growth was due to revenues from The Angry Birds Movie released in May 2016.
The company overall saw revenues increase to €86.2 million, with a year on year revenue increase of 94.0%.
Rovio ceo Kati Levoranta commented: “The second quarter of 2017 evidenced true delivery of our ‘Games-First’ strategy with very strong growth in revenues and profits.
“During the second quarter, we also finalised Rovio’s restructuring and moved towards a licensing model of lower operating and capital expenses in the consumer products and animated content businesses.
“The benefits of these structural changes, however, have not yet been reflected in the strong financial performance we achieved in the first half of 2017.”
Kati continued: “The brand licensing business unit saw strong revenue growth due to revenues from The Angry Birds Movie.
“During the second quarter, we entered into a movie licensing, production and distribution agreement with Columbia Pictures Industries regarding Angry Birds movie sequel, scheduled for release in September 2019.”
For the first half of 2017, Rovio’s revenue increased by 94.3% year on year to €152.6 million, while adjusted EBITDA increased to €41.8 million (H1 2016: €11.0m).
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