Rovio to wield jobs axe

Rovio Entertainment, the Finnish company behind the Angry Birds franchise, is to cut its workforce in Finland by about 16%, resulting in up to 130 job losses.

Mikael Hed

The company’s outgoing CEO Mikael Hed said today that the job reductions are necessary because Rovio has been building its team “on assumptions of faster growth than has materialised.”

Hed, who has held the top job at the Espoo-based company for five years, is stepping down to be replaced by the former boss of marketing at mobile giant Nokia at the beginning of 2015.

Angry Birds is one of the world’s biggest licensing properties, covering games, books, animation and apparel.

Rovio now plans to “simplify” its organisation around three key business areas it believes have the highest growth potential: games, media and consumer products.

“It is never easy to consider changes like this, but it is better to do them sooner rather than later, when we are in a good place to re-ignite growth,” Hed said.

Rovio is building a slate of animation series based on its Angry Birds app, which launched in 2009 and went on to become the most downloaded game of all time.

An Angry Birds Toons series has already been produced, while shows based on the Bad Piggies and Stella characters are also in development, alongside a feature film scheduled for a 2016 release.

Its online distribution outlet, ToonsTV, has attracted more than two billion views since it launched in March last year, according to Rovio. Its library includes the firm’s original series alongside third-party content from the likes of Hasbro Studios, The Jim Henson Company and Stan Lee.