Rovio Set to Open China Offices, With Ambitious and Angry Birds

Peter Vesterbacka at GMIC 2011, Beijing

Rovio, the Finnish game developer that brought us Angry Birds, has announced plans to open a China office devoted to serving the local market. The company will also be opening stores in China where it will sell branded merchandise and clothing.

We were lucky enough to briefly meet with Rovio’s Peter Vesterbacka at the Global Mobile Internet Conference in Beijing this past April. During his on-stage talk, he explained that unlike many companies who become upset when their brand is copied in China, Rovio is quite pleased about being imitated because it increases the brand’s recognition.

The company has already partnered with download portal Downjoy to bring the Angry Birds franchise to Chinese users at angrybirds.d.cn. Rovio is aiming to hit 100,000 downloads of all its Angry Birds games in China, and that’s a pretty lofty goal for a foreign game franchise. We’ll have to see if the popularity of the series can effectively transfer to the Chinese market.

[Via Marbridge]