Rovio recorded a significant increase in operating profit, which it said was thanks to the Angry Birds 2 game achieving “record revenues”, in the opening quarter of 2018.

A matter of weeks after the company revealed it was considering cutting the pay of its executives due to declining market value, it revealed operating profit hit €9.2 milllion in Q1, up from €5.3 million in the comparable 2017 period, with revenue declining slightly (0.9 per cent) to €65.7 million.

Its games segment revenue grew 0.4 per cent to €56.8 million while brand licensing revenue declined 8.8 percent to €8.9 million.

Kati Levoranta, CEO said the results were in line with expectations.

“Our top game Angry Birds 2 achieved record revenues and Angry Birds Friends continued its steady performance. Revenues from the Angry Birds movie grew somewhat year-on-year and although we got some headwind from the currency exchange rates, our profitability improved considerably,” she said.

The CEO said Rovio is focusing on not just acquiring new users, but engaging current ones with updates and improvements to in-app purchases.

Rovio is working on ten games which are in different phases of development, one of which is in soft launch.

“One of the reasons we stated when going public was our aim to participate in the consolidation of the games industry. This is on our agenda continuously and we are actively scouting for targets having a good strategic fit,” Levoranta added.

In February the group said it expects 2018 revenue to be between €260 million and €300 million, compared with €297 million in 2017. The prediction was well below market forecasts of around €337 million.