This is Alexis Tsotsis from TechCrunch and I am here with Mighty Eagle Peter Vesterbacka and he's just come off stage and what is currently his second biggest market and his fastest growing market.Yeah. Yeah.And you were talking about Angry Birds in China. Absolutely. Is this like the new Sanrio? I mean I feel like you've been wearing this Angry Birds sweater around. You had the balloons. You had the balloons which weren't licensed. True, true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, yeah, I don't know if we're the new Sanrio, but actually, talking about Sanrio, I was kind of really impressed by the fact or let's say not so much, but in San Diego in the official Hello Kitty store, the biggest selling product is actually fake Angry Birds merchandise, but okay, we kind of giving a bit of feedback about that, but he was kind of interesting that it's not only here in China, there's like, a lot of, not so licensed Angry Bird products, but I was actually, able to find some at the Sanrio store in San Diego. So, but, anyway, Okay, so, to give us ever since of the scale here. You were saying in Korea Angry Birds has 20 million downloads. And the population of Korea is forty million. Forty, yeah. So it's like half, yeah.In China, you've got...
We've got over 50 million now, but we're on track to hit 100 million downloads this year in China. Across all platforms? Across Android, across iPhone...
Across all platforms. So it's like iOS, Android. We actually...one big reason why our growth is accelerating here in China is actually we announced support for feature phones by both Nokia. So they're like series 40 and then the Media Tech, you know, platform that's very popular in China. So, yeah. We're actually doing pretty amazing numbers in China right now, but again, our overall goal is to be the leading Chinese entertainment brand, and we hope to get there next year.Next year. I know. You hope to file...you were talking last night about how you hope to file for IPO in 2012. Yeah, let's say that we'll see when, but again, now of course we are getting ready before that, things are moving pretty fast, so yeah. So you've got 15 million dollars?Yeah. Be where right now, but it's growing very fast and I think we had like something like 10, 20 million dollars here in the set the goal of 100 million in China this year. So, you know, it's ambitious but we'll get there. Who's your competitor, who's your closest competitor here in China? I don't know.Biggest entertainment brand.Yeah, probably. In Disney's out of foreign brands, they've been doing currently the best. But in there a few local Chinese brands as well but I would say that there's not a whole lot of entertainment brands that are doing, like an amazing job in China and right now we're the most copied brand. So again, they chose that the brand is very much loved here in China.
So the population is 1.3 billion, 50 billion downloads. Any idea how many people are actually in the internet here?It seems like 400 But it seems like 400 mark dominance..I think it's like 400 million. So, we should be back to, you know, like 2 or 300 million users when you take all the phones and all of that fairly rapidly. I mean you always look at collect capturing 20, 30% population. So So yeah. I mean, that kind of like adds up, so, you know, maybe two, three hundred million in the not too distant future. What's your strategy? So you're seeing all this unlicensed merchandise. And there's a huge problem with cloning here.Sure.It's going to get mentioned every interview I understand.Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah.What's your strategy for fighting back? I know that you've been carrying around your unlicensed merchandise. Of course, yeah. Yeah. Always when I'm here I pick up, you know, like the latest and greatest and I always give feedback to these guys that they should tell their factories to make better copies, you know, if nothing else. But again, of course...
So much fun.Yeah.
Try harder.Yeah, exactly. I mean, like, after all, I mean, if you have like this Dolce and Gabbana, you know, Angry Birds products. I mean, Dolce and Gabbana is like a pretty good brand. So, I'm sure they can do better. You know, but anyway...But, I mean, seriously speaking. Again, we learn a lot from the pirates and, you know, like the copies. So, we then, you know, we copy the pirates and make better copies of that and make it, you know, like, officially licensed products, but also to kind of like make some money on that. We're building our own retail presence here in China, so our own stores in Shanghai and Beijing. And that's something that we're kind of like starting to do right now. And I think that one thing that you have to understand about China and especially like the younger people, they all know, you know, how you value IP and they want to buy the real thing, the real, licensed product. So I think that it will take, you know, 10, 20 years and the situation will be much better. But it's, again, you know, you have to live with it. It's the same for us for, you know, every other brand. So we just kind of like have to cope with it and, again, trying to offer kind of the real thing as well, which we haven't really been doing a great job at so far.I feel like it becomes sort of a status symbol among the Chinese youth to have the officially licensed...
Oh, absolutely. ...or the actual...
Absolutely.I mean, if you compare with Apple, I think you can tell the difference between the fake phones and the real.Absolutely. Absolutely.Yeah.Yeah. And the same with our product. some in...but there are some like good copies and all of that. And again, I think one of the thing that also, it would be even worse if nobody copied us because that would mean that nobody cares about the brand. And I think right now we're the most copied brand in China. So you see Angry Birds everywhere. So it really means that the brand is huge and it's loved here. And it's also pretty amazing considering that we spent zero on advertising. But now you're starting just to copy the copies. Absolutely. And do a much better job and offer a better experience. So again, you can expect to see some pretty amazing Angry Birds products, officially licensed, in our like really amazing Angry Birds retail stores that will offer an amazing experience as well.So no one...Your second office, you're based out of Finland, but your second office is in Shanghai...
Absolutely....or you're starting a new office in Shanghai. Yeah, absolutely. So Helsinki is where we have like 98% of our people, and Shanghai is our first office outside of Finland. And again, it's just kind of like reflection of the fact that China extremely important and it's really kind of like the future, if you will, and we want to be here early. Right now it's a good time to be in China, we're already making money here, so again, big, big folks was in. We always say that we want to be more Chinese than the Chinese companies.And, you don't have stores anywhere else, so, you're, you're your second office in China, your first stores in China. Yes, absolutely we do a lot of things first here in China, it's just, Versus the United States. Yeah, but it's again, there's a lot of things that just make sense to do because we can do them so much faster here and things here in China are moving at like amazing speed so it's really makes a lot of sense and we can test and we can validate things a lot faster than we can do anywhere else in the world. Can you talk a little bit about your strategy moving forward. You were supposed to launch a Facebook game in May. Yeah. And that still hasn't materialized and it is October 31. It will, it will, in the not too distant future but again we don't have an exact date we actually concert on getting our game and technology a ride so we did the whole game in HD in 05'. We launched that actually xx basic web version together with the Google Chrome guys. We know have 70 million unique players on that, so it's the biggest HTML 5 game on the planet and okay we did some light weight social features so we're now the biggest Html 5 game on google+. Yeah facebook we will be there but we're building some special xx xx on that side so again it's going to be exciting. Ten months? A half a year? Let's say that there's no exact date but but it will be there sooner rather than later. Thank you. The cookbook? So what're you going to sell in the store? Your selling a cookbook.So, yeah, we have [xx] cookbook. What's a recipe. That's available in, yeah.Okay, so, let's look at a recipe.Yeah, yeah, it's like a bad piggy's egg recipes. So, we can, like pick one, let's do like, randomly, huffing and puffing cheese and egg souflee. And then there's like like, lift me up zucchini omelette, big boy Cheyenne square omelette, so you know like this kind of stuff. And this is now available in paper form in English and Chinese and we're also working on several other books so we're really really serious about books. And, again, if you have a popular, you know, loved brand, then, it will take physical form, and, in our case, books are happening as well. We're doing an animation, we're making movies, we're doing stuff.You mentioned earlier that you're, you're closest competitor is Disney, right?Yeah, I, I, think that they are doing a lot of, kind of like the same things as we are doing and they're of course like an amazing role model, they're doing movies, they have theme parks, they're making like a lot of things even games nowadays, but I think what's very important if you look at, take Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse has been around since the beginning of time. But, one thing that you need to remember about Mickey Mouse, as well, that Mickey Mouse came out of this black and white cartoon, Steamboat Willie. Like, way back. And, I really think if Walt Disney was alive today, he would be making games. You know, for the iPhone. I mean, like, amazing platforms, you can really create amazing experiences. And, again, we're just using the tools of the trade, you know, today, you know, back in the day, To build a brand.Absolutely. Back in the day you know you had animation, you had the black and white cartoons. Of course we've come along way since, but again its just, its just, like we're doing the same things, and again, we can do things faster, but, also, you know, it's just two years into the Angry Birds experiences. So, it's, it's, very, very, early days, and, of course, you know Mickey Mouse, is, like a tiny little mouse, but it's like a huge pop culture icon. In terms of mind share it's billions strong. Absolutely. Absolutely, absolutely and and again so we basically look at what those guys have been doing and then we try to you know, learn from what they're doing everyday. in what is currently his second biggest market, Uh huh.and, his fastest growing market. Yep. Yep.And, you were talking about Angry Birds in china. Absolutely. Is this like the new Sanrio? I feel like you have been wearing this Angry Birds sweater around, you had the balloons, you had the balloons which weren't licensed. True, true, yeah, yeah, actually yeah I don't know if we're the new Sanrio but actually talking about Sanrio was kind of like, really impressed by the fact or, let's say, not so much. But, in San Diego, in the official Hello, Kitty, store, the biggest selling product is actually fake Angry Birds merchandise. But ok, yeah, we kind of like, "You have no better feedback about that." But it was kind of like interesting that it's not only here in China, there's like, a lot of not so, licensed, and, diverse products, but, I was actually able to find some at the Sanrio store in San Diego. So, but, anyway Okay, so, to give us million downloads and the population of Korea is 40 million. Yeah. In China you've got. We've got over 50 million now but, we're on track to hit a hundred million downloads this year, in China.Across all platforms, across Android, across iPhone Across all platforms. So, it's like, IOS, android, we actually, one big reason why our growth is accelerating here in China is actually we announced support for feature phones by both Nokia so they're like series 40 and then the media tech platform that's very popular here in China, so, so yeah we're actually doing pretty amazing numbers in China right now, but, but, again, our overall goal is to be the leading Chinese entertainment brand, and, we hope to get there next year.Next year. I know. Your, you hope to file, you were talking last night about how you hope to file for IPO in 2012.Yeah, no, not, yeah, but, let's say, we'll, Your baby.We'll see when. But, but, again, of course, we're, we're getting ready but again its just things are moving pretty fast so yeah. you've got fifty million dollars. yeah it's growing very fast. I think we had like something like 10 20 million when i was here set the goal of a hundred million in china this year so you know it's ambitious but we'll get there. who's your competitor who's your closest competitor here in china? I don't know.[xx] entertainment brand.Yeah, probably. I mean, they sneeze over the four M brands, they've been doing [xx], the bests, but, in their a few local chinese brands as well but i would say there's not like a whole lot of entertainment brands that are doing like a amazing job in china right and now we are the most copied brand so again it shows that the brand is is very much loved here in china. the population is 1. fifty billion, fifty billion downloads. Any idea how many people are actually on the internet here?I thinks its like four hundred. It's a.
What's your market dominance?I think it's like four hundred million, so we should two, you know, [xx]
like, two or three hundred million users, when you take all the phones, and, all of that, fairly rapidly. I mean, we always look at, count on, capturing twenty, thirty percent of the population. So, strategy, so you're seeing all of this unlicensed merchandise and there is a huge problem with cloning here. Sure.
It's going to get mentioned every interview.Absolutely absolutely. What's your strategy for fighting back?Yeah.I, I, I know that you, you've been carrying around your unlicensed merchandise.Oh, of course. Yeah, yeah, we, I'm always when I'm here, I pick up you know, like, the latest and greatest, and, I always get like, and, give feed back to these guys, that they should tell their factories to make better copies, you know, if nothing else. But, but, again, of course, So much fun.Yeah. What are we Try harder.Yeah, exactly, I mean, like, after all, I mean, if you have this Dolce and Gabana, you know, Angry Birds product. I mean, look, Dolce and Gabana is like a pretty good brand so I'm sure they can do better, you know. But anyway, no but it's, I mean, seriously speaking, again we learn a lot from the pirates and you know liked the copies so we then, you know, we copied the pirates to make better copies of that and make it, you know, like the official license products, but, also, to kind of make some money on that. We're building our own retail presence here in China. So, our own stores in Shanghai and Beijing and that's something we are kinda starting to do right now and I think that one thing you have to understand about China, and, especially about the younger people, they all know, you know, collectible value IP, and, they want to buy the real thing. The real licensed product. So, so, I think, it will take ten, twenty years, and, the situation will be much better. But, it's again, you know, you have to live with it. It's the same for us, for, you know, every other brand. So, we just, kind of like, have to cope with it. And, and, again, trying to offer, kind of like, the real thing, as well which we, we haven't really have been doing a great at it so far.I feel it has becomes sort of a status symbol among the Chinese youth to have the officially licensed. Oh, absolutely.Or the actual.Absolutely.I mean, if you compare, with Apple, I think you can tell the difference between the fake phones. Absolutely, absolutely.and, the real. Yeah.And, the same with our products. something but there are some kind of like good copies and all of that and again one thing also that it would be even worse if no one copied us because that would mean that nobody cares about the brand. And uh, I think right now, we're the most copied brand in China. So you see angry birds every where, so it really means that the brand is Huge and it's [xx] here and uh, it's also pretty amazing considering that we spent zero on advertising. but now strategy is to copy the copies.Absolutely, and do a much job and offer a better experience so again you can expect to see some pretty amazing [xx] products A million dollars? Yeah bitter war right now but yeah its growing very fast and I think we had like something like ten twenty million when I was here in the. Your, your second office, you're based out of Finland but your second office is in Shanghai.Absolutely. Yea, yea absolutely, so helsinki is where we have a 98 percent of our people and Shanghai is our first office outside of Finland and again just kind of like reflection of the fact that [XX] Extremely important and and is really come up in future if if you will and we want be here orally and right now you know it's it's a good time to be in china we are making money here so so again focus and what we say is we want to be more chinese than the chinese companies. and you don't have stores any where your second office in china your first store in china.Absolutely. we do a lot of things first here in china first is the united states. yeah but it's it's again there's a lot of things that just make sense to do because we can do them so much faster here and and things here in China are moving at like amazing speed, so it really makes sense and we can test and we can validate things a lot faster than we can do anywhere else in the world. can you talk a little bit about your strategy moving forward. you were supposed to launch a face book game in may. yeah it still hasn't materialized and it is october 31. It will it will in the not too distant future but again we don't have an exact date We actually concentrate on getting comic art, game and technology rides so we did the whole game in html5. We launched that actually just a basic web version together with the Google Chrome guys. We now have 70 million unique players on that, so it's the biggest html5 game on the planet. And we then added some lightweight social features so now we're the biggest html5 game on Google+, and yeah, Facebook we will be there, but we are building some special experiences from that side so again, it's going to be like exciting.So months? Half a year? Let's say that there's no exact date. But it will be there sooner rather than later. Let's put it that way.Thank you. The cookbook, so what are you going to sell in the store? So, you're selling a cookbook? So yeah, we have the Angry Birds cookbook. It is available in... yeah.Okay so, let's look at a recipe.
Yeah, it's like a bad piggies egg recipes. So we can like, Ok. Pick one, let's do, like, randomly do Huffin and Puffin. Cheese and egg souffle and there's like a like Lift me up, a zucchiniomelet. Big boy, giant square omelet, so you know like this kind of stuff. this is now available in paper form in English and Chinese and we're also working on several other books so we're really really serious about books and again if you have a popular xx brand then it will take physical form and in our case books are happening as well we're doing xx we're making movies we're doing stuff. you mentioned earlier your your closest competitor is Disney right? think that they are doing a lot of the kind of like the same things as we are doing and they are of course kind of like amazing role models they are doing movies they have been [xx] they're making a lot of things even games now days. But i think what's very important, I mean, if you look at, take Mickey Mouse. Mickey Mouse has been around like since the beginning of time. But one of the things you need to remember about Mickey Mouse as well is that Mickey Mouse came out of this black and white cartoon, Steam boat willie, like way back and i really think that you know if walt disney were a live today he would be making games you know for the iPhone i mean like amazing plat forms you can really create amazing experiences and again, we're just using the tools of the trade today. Back in the day - to build a brand. Yeah absolutely. back in the day, you know, you had animation, you had the black and white cartoons. Of course, we've come a long way since, but again it's just like we're doing the same things and again we can do things faster, but also it;s just two years into [xx] experience. So it's very, very early days course you know Mickey Mouse is like ok a tiny little mouse but its like a huge pop culture icon. in terms of xx xx. absolutely. It's billions Absolutely, absolutely. And again, we basically look at what those guys have been doing and then we try to learn from what they are doing everyday.
In a little over two years of existence, the smartphone game Angry Birds is now a household name. A lesson in horizontal brand extension, Rovio “Mighty Eagle” Peter Vesterbacka wore an Angry Birds sweater and carried around a bouquet of Angry Birds mylar ballons, on not just one, but all days of the TechCrunch Disrupt Beijing conference.
He is in China because the sprawling country is Rovio’s second biggest and fastest growing market, and Vesterbacka is attacking it full force; opening an office in Shanghai and Angry Birds retail stores in the country shortly. The game itself has had over 50 million downloads in China, and Vesterbacka hopes to hit 100 million by the end of the year. “We want to be the leading Chinese entertainment brand,” he says.
Vesterbacka describes Angry Birds as the “most copied” brand in China and plans on dealing with the piracy by making better copies than the pirates; “It would be even worse if nobody copied us, because it would me that nobody cares about the brand.”
Vesterbacka has extended that brand to stuffed animals, cookbooks and even a movie! “If you have a popular loved brand it will take physical form, ” he explains, “In our case books are happening as well. We’re doing animation … we’re making movies.”
Not surprisingly, Vesterbacka views Walt Disney as a role model, ” If Walt Disney was alive today, he would be making games for the iPhone … We’re just using the tools of the trade [available] today to build a brand. Back in the day you had animation and you had black and white cartoons.” Nowadays you have iOS.
So is Vesterbacka too ambitious? “Mickey Mouse is a tiny little mouse but a huge pop culture icon.” Enough said.
