Rovio Entertainment, the Finnish company behind the wildly successful Angry Birds franchise, said on Tuesday that it is moving forward with its initial public offering in Helsinki.
Better late than never, eh?
Angry Birds is one of the most popular mobile gaming franchises ever conceived. Originally released in December 2009 for iOS, the game tasks players with flinging birds at pigs that have stolen their eggs. The puzzle / shooter / strategy game was an immediate hit and has spawned a number of sequels as well as merchandise, toys and even a movie.
Rovio reached its pinnacle years ago and was largely expected to go public in the 2012 time frame. Ultimately, it decided to hold off which seems like a mistake in hindsight.
All told, Rovio's games have been downloaded more than 3.7 billion times as of June 2017 and they had an average of 80 million monthly active users as of the second quarter of this year.
That said, one can't help but think that the Angry Birds franchise isn't nearly as popular as it once was... even if it does have an average global brand awareness of 97 percent as Rovio claims. That combined with the fact that Rovio hasn't had a follow-up hit on the same level likely means that the company left a lot of money on the table by waiting to go public.