Rovio Entertainment, the Finland-based creator of Angry Birds, plans to make its offline presence in China more active.
Rovio co-founder Peter Vesterbacka, who considers China as an important market for Angry Birds, says Angry Birds official stores are soon to be opened in China, initially in Beijing and Shanghai. The stores are aimed not only to boost the brand and meet the accelerating demand but to combat unlicensed sales of Angry Birds products as well.
The company opened its first overseas office in Shanghai last year to drive China expansion. It also built some collaborations with Chinese companies including online retail platform Tmall for online retailing, telecom operator Unicom for introducing new version of Angry Birds and microblogging website Sina Weibo for offering free downloads of Angry Birds comics.
Rovio, which launched an adventure park called Särkänniemi in Finland in April, will also build the same park in China through a tie-up with playground manufacturer Lappset Group. The adventure park will include many different elements such as rides and amusement park games. The park will also feature ‘magic places’, where outdoor activities and the gaming world meet.
“The activity parks are not like theme parks where people stand for two hours and ride for 10 minutes,” said Vesterbacka. “We want our fans to be part of the game.”
Angry Birds’ popularity in China is attested by about 40 million downloads. Rovio Entertainment’s strong growth in game download and consumer product sales drove its total revenue to US$106.3 million last year.
GB
