Angry Birds developer Rovio isn’t going to put itself on the stock market yet, but it’s definitely got plans to do so.
It’s no secret that developer Rovio is sitting on a gold mine thanks to Angry Birds, both in terms of App purchases and merchandise sales. Early speculation valued the company just a little bit north of $9 billion, but the company has decided to forego raising this cash via an IPO – at least, for now. That said, you, too, could still own some stock in the company, but it probably won’t be for a while.
Speaking to Reuters, Rovio’s head of marketing Peter Vesterbacka explained that – while the studio does want to be listed on both New York and Hong Kong stock exchanges – an IPO isn’t in the cards quite yet:
“We are not in a rush. This year is way too early for an IPO, there are too many open things, and we are in a very early stage of the Angry Birds lifecycle.
“Hong Kong is very interesting, absolutely, but again it is totally dependent on how markets develop. Asia is where all the people are, and future growth.”
Angry Birds has been reportedly downloaded for mobile devices over 600 million times, and it’s nearly impossible to walk into a major retailer these days without running into a display of licensed plush toys. It was expected that that Rovio would seek an IPO during the 2011 holiday season, but nothing happened. Speculation has noted that other tech groups – like Zynga and Groupon – have had unimpressive IPO launches, which may have caused Rovio to wait a little while before it decided to get itself listed.
That comment how we’re still in the early stages of the Angry Birds life cycle is rather interesting. Rovio’s already got tons of tie-in merchandise for sale and an animated movie in the works, so I wonder what else is planned.
Source: Reuters via Industry Gamers
Published: Jan 20, 2012 11:45 pm