Rovio is laying off 16% of its workforce as the Angry bird maker focuses on its games, media and consumer products businesses amid stalling growth.
The Angry Birds maker is expected to let up to 130 members of staff based in Finland go in the face of planning to simplify the organisation, the company’s chief executive Mikael Hed wrote in a blog post.
“We have been building our team on assumptions of faster growth than have materialised. As a result, we announced today that we plan to simplify our organisation around our three key businesses with the highest growth potential: games, media, and consumer products,” he wrote. “Unfortunately, we also need to consider possible employee reductions of a maximum of 130 people in Finland (approximately 16 per cent of workforce).”
Angry Birds still has 200m active players, but its growth has been slower than expected. The Angry Birds games still have 200m active players, but that’s down from 263m at the series’ peak at the end of 2012.
First launched in 2009, Angry Birds has gone on to become one of the most successful smartphone apps of all time. Last year Rovio announced revenues of £128.4 million.
Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage has been announced as the voice of the Mighty Eagle in the forthcoming Angry Birds animated film, also starring Horrible Bosses’ Jason Sudeikis and Bridesmaids’ Maya Rudolph.
The production team posted the first available picture from the film on the game’s website earlier this week (pictured above). The film is due for release in summer 2016.