Rovio has big plans for China, which is now the world’s largest smartphone market. In an interview to Mobile World Live, the company’s general manager for China, Paul Chen, said: “We’ve got big plans in building up the team and expanding our business overall as it relates to our games, our entertainment and our consumer products.”
As part of the deal, Rovio will open two Angry Birds retail stores in Beijing and Shanghai with “several hundred” more planned for the next 12 to 18 months. Moreover, the first official Angry Birds activity park (as opposed to the fake one) is due to open near Shanghai in October with many more due to follow.
Rovio has already launched Chinese Moon Festival and Year of the Dragon levels for its Angry Birds Seasons game as part of its plan to take “Chinese culture and introduced it to tens of millions of people outside China.”
The Angry Birds maker only opened its Chinese office at the beginning of 2012 but is now keen to take advantage of the country’s huge growth potential. Chen also acknowledged challenges of operating in the world’s most populous country, including app piracy, the fragmentation of app stores and different monetization models, adding that the introduction of low-cost devices is giving it access to a whole group of consumers that have never played Angry Birds before…
You can watch the whole interview with Paul Chen at Mobile World Live.