Rovio, the Finnish development studio behind Angry Birds, is to lay off 130 employees – approximately 16 per cent of the total workforce – CEO Mikael Hed has announced in a blog post.
Hed’s post, titled Towards a simplified organisation, says the company has been building its team on “assumptions of faster growth than have materialised.”
“As a result,” Hed continues, “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.
“Unfortunately, we also need to consider possible employee reductions of a maximum of 130 people in Finland (approximately 16 per cent of workforce).”
The CEO goes on to say: “It is never easy to consider changes like this, but it is better to do them sooner rather than later, when we are in a good place to reignite growth.”
Although active player numbers for Angry Birds are down more than 20 per cent since 2012, Rovio still reports more than 200 million regular players of the game.
However, in 2013 staff numbers swelled by a massive 60 per cent to 800 while profits dropped by around 50 per cent to €27m, down from €55.5m in 2012 – a workforce Rovio evidently considers too big for its current model.
Hed himself is set to stand down as CEO at the end of the year, to be replaced by Pekka Rantala, a former Nokia executive.
