Sega to Acquire Rovio, Developer of Angry Birds

Sega, the Japanese video game company known for the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, has announced its acquisition of Rovio, the Finnish developer behind the mobile game Angry Birds. The deal is worth €706 million (approximately $775 million) and represents a 19 percent premium over Rovio’s share price at close on Friday. The deal is expected to close by the end of September.

In a press release, Sega stated that it plans to leverage Rovio’s expertise in live service mobile game operation to bring Sega’s existing and new titles to the global mobile gaming market. The acquisition is part of Sega's effort to accelerate its expansion in the rapidly growing global mobile gaming market. Sega also aims to help Rovio expand its platform beyond mobile gaming.

Rovio CEO Alexandre Pelletier-Normand specifically highlighted the company’s Beacon platform, which is designed to develop games-as-a-service products. In addition, Haruki Satomi, president and group CEO of Sega parent company Sega Sammy Holdings, stated that the acquisition would enable Sega to use Rovio's know-how to expand its mobile gaming offerings.

Rovio is best known for its work on the Angry Birds franchise, which debuted in 2009 and was the first mobile game series to reach 1 billion downloads. Rovio claims that its games have been downloaded over 5 billion times. Although Angry Birds has been adapted for the big screen twice, more recent entries in the franchise have struggled to make a similar impact.

Before its acquisition by Sega, Rovio had been in talks to be acquired by Israel-based Playtika, but the talks officially ended in March 2022. Rovio has been a publicly traded company since 2017.