Rovio Entertainment Corp. Stock Exchange Release Feb 12, 2020 at 8:58 a.m. EET
Rovio's subsidiary Hatch Entertainment Ltd. focuses its strategy, plans to restructure operations, with annualized cost savings of EUR 6 million. Rovio decided to end the financing round for Hatch.
Hatch Entertainment Ltd is focusing its strategy and shifting its service development towards Hatch Kids, a subscription based entertainment and edutainment streaming service tailored for children and families. Accordingly, Hatch is planning to restructure and align its operations with the focused strategy. The planned annualized cost savings are approximately EUR 6 million.
The competitive landscape in game streaming evolved and became more challenging during 2019 with many new game streaming services being announced globally for different platforms. In addition, the foundation for a well functioning mobile game streaming consumer experience, i.e. the roll-out of 5G networks and devices is progressing at a slower pace than expected. Since the Hatch game streaming service go-to-market is largely based on the 5G roll-out wave, slower progress as well as the increased competition in the operating environment led Hatch to decide to focus its strategy.
Hatch Kids is currently in soft launch in Finland and Sweden on Android and the early performance of the service has been encouraging. While the Hatch Kids service works best over 5G connections being rolled-out in the coming years, it is less sensitive to mobile network speeds and thus also works on a good 4G connection which provides for a larger addressable market already today.
In 2019, Rovio announced that during the year Rovio will explore alternative financial structures and partnerships for Hatch. Rovio has decided to end the 2019 financing round and is evaluating strategic alternatives for Hatch.
ROVIO ENTERTAINMENT CORPORATION
More information:
Kati Levoranta, CEO
+358 40 4858985
RovioIR@rovio.com
Distribution:
Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd
Key media
www.rovio.com
About Rovio:
Rovio Entertainment Corporation is a global, games-first entertainment company that creates, develops and publishes mobile games, which have been downloaded 4.5 billion times so far. Rovio is best known for the global Angry Birds brand, which started as a popular mobile game in 2009, and has since evolved from games to various entertainment and consumer products in brand licensing. Today, Rovio offers multiple mobile games, animations and has produced The Angry Birds Movie, which opened number one in theatres in 50 countries. Its sequel, The Angry Birds Movie 2, was released worldwide in August 2019. Rovio is headquartered in Finland and the company's shares are listed on the main list of NASDAQ Helsinki stock exchange with the trading code ROVIO. (www.rovio.com)