‘Angry Birds’ Maker Rovio Returns To Profitable Growth

Finnish games company Rovio soared back to profit in 2016, lifted by its venture into the film industry and the release of The Angry Birds Movie, the company said.

According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, Rovio’s gross revenue for 2016 grew 34% in 2016 as Rovio reported strong growth for the year.

The strong growth of the company‘s Games division is based on extended life cycles and improved performance metrics of Rovio’s key games. Rovio’s best performing games in 2016 included Angry Birds 2, Angry Birds Friends and Angry Birds POP, all with increased revenues year on year.

The CEO of Rovio, Kati Levoranta, said at a press event today at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco that games and The Angry Birds Movie helped push the company into the black compared to a loss the year before.

“I”m happy to say that Rovio did extremely well,” Levoranta said. “During 2016, we found the magic thing in Rovio again.”

The spin-off film from the company’s popular Angry Birds mobile game series resulted in their multi-colored birds and green pigs resurfacing with earnings before interest and taxes of 17.5 million euros in 2016, the company said in a statement published late Tuesday.

Despite the film’s success, Rovio’s animation division suffered a loss of 2.2 million euros but the company said it would book most of the revenues related to the movie in 2017 and 2018.

Rovio also runs Angry Birds theme parks in several countries including Finland, China and Spain, and publishes children’s books in dozens of languages.