Angry Birds

Angry Birds is now the most copied brand in China, but it seems developer Rovio doesn't mind at all. Speaking at the Disrupt conference in Beijing, CEO Peter Vesterbacka said the widespread availability of unlicensed Angry Birds merchandise proved that there was a sufficiently large audience in the country to justify Rovio's Chinese expansion. More >

Rovio offers a rare insight into its player's figures at the Web 2.0 Summit More >

Angry Birds developer Rovio Entertainment could begin selling shares to the public as early as next year, with the company valued internally at “a bit north” of $1 billion. More >

The Angry Birds developer is reportedly continuing its expansion into other walks of life by entering talks with Starbucks with a view to putting leaderboard displays into its coffee shops. More >

Rovio US general manager claims that the studio's iOS hit has now reached 350 million downloads across all platforms and that mobile gamers spend over 300 million collective minutes playing it each day. The figure follows news earlier today that the company is shifting around one million Angry Birds plush toys and one million T-shirts each month.

App game Angry Birds is everywhere, and not just on mobile devices. According to Rovio the company is shifting one million t-shirts and one million plush toys per month. Rovio’s North American general manager Andrew Stalbow also revealed the developer is looking at Facebook for its future plans: “Facebook has actually been a massive platform for us, even though we’ve haven’t created a game on there yet. In terms of launching a game on there in the future, yes, absolutely, that’s something we’ll be talking about in the near future”.

Andrew Stalbow, previously senior vice president of mobile at Fox Digital Entertainment, has joined the Angry Birds developer as general manager of its North American division. Stalbow has worked with the firm before, on the movie tie-in Angry Birds Rio, and said: "I saw first-hand the power of the Angry Birds brand during the collaboration…I'm looking forward to helping grow Rovio's business and the franchise by building partnerships with the entertainment industry, the biggest consumer brands and the latest digital distribution platforms."

In the wake of EA's $750 million acquisition of PopCap, Ville Heijari, VP of franchise development at Angry Birds developer Rovio, admits the studio has had "discussions with many different companies" about selling the business. "We really think we have a lot of opportunities with our IP and there's a lot of creativity at the studio beyond Angry Birds," he told Eurogamer. "But the valuation from our point of view is somewhere, I dunno, maybe north of PopCap."

Founder Peter Vesterbacka reveals the latest milestone to TechCrunch - the series reached 100 million downloads in March. Vesterbacka says Rovio's next project is a game called Wine And Dine, and the studio is also apparently at work on "a cookbook which will feature egg recipes."

An enterprising soul has got Rovio's mobile hit running (more or less) on a 'rooted' Nook, Barnes & Noble's Android-powered black and white e-reader. It's not exactly stable as is, but this is a much better use for an e-reader than reading books, no?

CEO Mikel Hed hails acquisition of Finnish studio Kombo, which has worked for Rovio before on promotional videos for Angry Birds, as "an important step in the execution of our media strategy."