HELSINKI: Rovio, the Finnish maker of the popular mobile game "Angry Birds" announced on Thursday it was cutting up to 130 jobs, blaming flagging sales growth.
The mobile phone game franchise is believed to have lost in the region of 60 million players since late 2012, having been unable to match the phenomenal success of its early "Angry Birds" games. The franchise still remains a world leader, though, with more than 200 million monthly active players.
"We are an entrepreneurial company and have been exploring multiple areas. We have been building our team on assumptions of faster growth than has materialised," Rovio chief executive Mikael Hed said in a statement.
He added that the company would now focus on games, media, and consumer products with the highest growth potential, without specifying which activities it would drop.
"Unfortunately, we also need to consider possible employee reductions of a maximum of 130 people in Finland," approximately 16 percent of the workforce, he said.
Following a period of rapid growth Rovio's profits dropped by 50 percent in 2013 as it increased investment to face growing competition.
The company's workforce grew by 300 people last year to total 800 employees.
"Rovio is about to become more and more a firm driven by franchising products, because the games sales are probably shrinking," technology analyst Tero Kuittinen, at Frank N. Magid Associates, told AFP.
"Their new entries which tried out different types of 'Angry Birds' -- 'Etik' and 'Angry Birds Stella' have flopped."
The company has expanded rapidly beyond video games with a vast array of merchandise, amusement parks in Europe and China, children's books and a feature film in the pipeline.
The "Angry Birds" series of games uses slingshots to launch little birds at fortresses built by green pigs.
It quickly became the most successful mobile game in history following its 2009 launch for smartphones and tablets, spawning an entire franchise of merchandise and media tie-ins.
Sales of Angry Bird spin-off products accounted for 47 percent of Rovio's total revenue in 2013.
But more recently, competing games such as "Candy Crush" have overtaken "Angry Birds" in popularity.
"The big question now is, will the fall of gaming sales also reduce interest in Angry Bird characters?" said Kuittinen.
"Rovio insists that the game downloads and merchandising product sales are two separate things, but the people who decide what are sold on the store shelves do focus on download figures," he said.
News about Rovio's job-cutting decision set off a storm of online commentary, including from a European Commission vice president, Neelie Kroes.
"My hope is today's tough choice will give Rovio (a) chance to get stronger for their fans in future; to stay, grow, create new jobs in EU," Kroes tweeted. (AFP)
