The business that develops the Angry Birds video games has agreed to be bought by the Japanese gaming juggernaut that designed the Sonic the Hedgehog mascot.
Finland-based Rovio Entertainment is being purchased by Japanese company Sega Sammy Holdings for a price of €706 million (£625 million). Rovio claims that Angry Birds was the first mobile game to surpass one billion downloads. Sega is making an effort to benefit from Rovio's expertise in mobile gaming. Over 550 people are employed by Rovio's eight gaming companies worldwide. Rovio revealed last year that its game library had been downloaded five billion times. Sega chose to purchase Rovio, according to a statement announcing the deal, in order to "strengthen its position" in the global gaming market.
The analysis predicts that by 2026, this market would be worth $263.3 billion, with 56% of the increase coming from mobile gaming. It highlighted Rovio's Beacon mobile gaming platform as having "20 years of high-level knowledge in live service-mobile game operation" in the US and Europe. The mobile gaming sector has particularly high potential within the rapidly developing global gaming industry, according to Haruki Satomi, CEO of Sega Sammy Holdings. Sega wants to accelerate this expansion in the long run.
According to Edward James, an analyst at Berenberg, Rovio has "one of the best and strongest brands in mobile gaming" in the shape of Angry Birds, calling the firm a "attractive asset."
He went on to say that the Sega mobile gaming platform was "very advantageous." Revenues at Rovio increased from €272.3 million in 2020 to €317.7 million in 2022, but operating profitability fell from €42.5 million to €28.6 million during the same period. Following the completion of the agreement with Sega, Rovio's stock rose by more than 18% on Monday. In order to create Sega Sammy, a Japanese holding company, two titans of the video game industry merged in 2004. Sega is well-known throughout the world for the creation of Sonic the Hedgehog, a character in a number of video game franchises that have sold millions of copies.
