Rovio taps Chinese developer to create regional Angry Birds games

Fly east, Angry Bird.

Rovio announced today that it’s working with Chinese mobile game developer Kunlun to create Angry Birds games specifically targeted for that market.

“China is a massively important market and the mobile games industry is growing at a very significant pace,” said CEO Pekka Rantala in a statement on Rovio’s website. “Angry Birds has been downloaded close to half a billion times in China. Forming a strategic partnership with Kunlun is an important step that helps Rovio establish an even stronger presence in China’s game market with localized content”.

The Angry Birds brand includes over a dozen mobile games, including versions based on Star Wars and Transformers. The original came out back in 2009. It is still the No. 13 ranked iOS game in the United States, according to App Annie.

Still, the company has had its problems recently. Rovio fired 110 employees in December, and recent Angry Birds games like Go! and Epic couldn’t come close to the success of the original.

Rovio is clearly interested in taking advantage of the Chinese market. The Finnish company is also opening nine Angry Birds theme parks in China by 2018.