Profits soar in 2012 for Angry Birds creator Rovio

Rovio, the Finnish makers of the hugely popular mobile game "Angry Birds", announced Wednesday a 57-percent rise in net profit last year, boosted by consumer product sales. "Year 2012 was another record-breaking year for Rovio," the company's chief financial officer Herkko Soininen said in a statement. Net profit rose to 55.5 million euros ($71.2 million) from 35.4 million a year earlier, while sales more than doubled to 152.2 million euros. Growth was driven by games revenue and consumer product sales, which more than tripled in 2012 and accounted for 45 percent of Rovio's overall sales. The "Angry Birds" game involves using slingshots to launch little birds at fortresses built by green pigs -- an absurdist, addictive game that quickly became the most successful mobile game in history, and which spawned an entire franchise of merchandise and media tie-ins. In December, the company had a total of 263 million active monthly game users. Four games were launched in 2012, bringing the total number of Rovio game downloads to more than 1.7 billion. "Rovio has grown from a phenomenon to a very successful global business. In 2010 we set out to build an entertainment company and after last year's performance we are on a strong path to achieve our goal," chief executive Mikael Hed said. The company has branched out in the past year. In October it announced it would be opening its first "Angry Birds" theme park in Asia, near Shanghai, in 2013. It will be the third such theme park, behind those in Finland and Britain. And in December, Rovio said it was making an animated 3D film based on "Angry Birds" that would hit cinemas in 2016.