Rovio's "Angry Birds" has reached a whopping half a billion downloads in China. (Photo : Reuters)
The popular mobile game "Angry Birds" has been downloaded nearly 500,000 times in China, showing how important Chinese mobile users are to the mobile games industry.
This is why the company behind the game, Finland's Rovio, will start tailoring "Angry Birds" to the Chinese market with help from Beijing Kunlun.
Even though Rovio was quite successful in expanding the "Angry Birds" brand into merchandising and franchising, the company seems stuck when it comes to releasing a new mobile game that could achieve the same level of popularity. As a result, the company cut around 110 jobs, or 14 percent of its total workforce.
Rovio is seeking to expand in China to stabilize its operations and profits. China makes natural business sense because the game is the most popular in the country, not to mention China has the most number of mobile game users.
"Angry Birds has been downloaded close to half a billion times in China," said Rovio Chief Executive Pekka Rantala.
"China is a massively important market and the mobile games industry is growing at a very significant pace," the chief added.
Pairing up with Beijing Kunlun also seems a wise decision because the Chinese games company's share price has more than doubled since it first went public on the Shenzhen stock market last month.
In the meantime, Rovio's "Jolly Jam" is making waves, albeit still not as popular as "Angry Birds." Many speculate that given time, the new game may even top the popularity and number of downloads that King's "Candy Crush" enjoyed.
"We're proud to bring Jolly Jam in partnership with Magic Tavern to puzzle game fans worldwide," said Wilhelm Taht, head of external products at Rovio.
"Jolly Jam is a next-generation puzzle game with a truly innovative gameplay mechanic and incredibly beautiful graphics."
