Games revenue up 16.6% year-on-year, strong start for new game Angry Birds Dream Blast
Comments from Kati Levoranta, CEO:
Rovio’s first quarter 2019 started with a blast! Strong performance of Angry Birds 2 and successful launch of Angry Birds Dream Blast drove Rovio Games first quarter revenue up 16.6% year-over-year.
Rovio’s revenue in the first quarter of 2019 was EUR 70.9 (65.7) million, growing by 7.8% compared to the same period of the last year. The adjusted operating profit was EUR 7.5 (9.6) million and the adjusted operating profit margin was 10.5% (14.6%). The decline in operating profit was mainly due to lower revenues in Brand Licensing in the beginning of the year, as expected.
We launched successfully a new game Angry Birds Dream Blast at the end of January. The gross bookings of Dream Blast were EUR 6.9 million in the first quarter, and this supported Rovio’s games business unit to reach EUR 66.3 million gross bookings. In March, the quarterly gross bookings run rate of Dream Blast already exceeded EUR 11 million and it is now Rovio’s second largest game.
Gross bookings of Angry Birds 2 were on a good level of EUR 32 million despite lower user acquisition investments for the game. Angry Birds 2 grew 48% year-on-year. Angry Birds Friends performed steadily with the quarterly revenue of EUR 7.2 million. We invested a record amount of EUR 23.7 million in user acquisition (14.6) of which majority was to boost the launch of Angry Birds Dream Blast.
Our new games pipeline continues to be very healthy. We have currently 14 games in different phases of development, of which two are in soft launch. We aim to have our next global game launch during the second half of the year.
Brand Licensing unit’s revenue was EUR 4.6 million and 48.2% lower year-on-year, due to lower revenues from The Angry Birds Movie, as expected. The premier of The Angry Birds Movie 2 is taking place in August this year and we expect the movie and surrounding marketing to boost our licensing business as well as drive users to our Angry Birds games during the second half of 2019.
Our new, immersive augmented reality game, Angry Birds AR: Isle of Pigs, is in pre-registration in Apple App Store and will be available for download shortly for Apple iPhone and iPad users.
Hatch Entertainment, Rovio’s 80% owned subsidiary developing a mobile game streaming service for mass audiences, has signed a partnership agreement with Samsung in April, following collaborations with leading teleoperators NTT DOCOMO and Sprint. To accelerate its growth, Hatch Entertainment is seeking external funding and further strategic partnerships.
While having many exciting things ahead of us I’d like to thank already now all Rovians for the great and fun start of the year!
Read the full report here.