Rovio, the maker of Angry Birds, has announced a game development and publishing partnership with Kunlun, a big player in China’s gaming industry, which will see the two collaborate in launching Angry Birds games specifically developed for the Chinese market.

Rovio CEO Pekka Rantala said that Angry Birds has been downloaded almost half a billion times in China, making it a “massively important market” for his company, and hopes that the partnership will help it “establish an even stronger presence” in the country with localised content.

Back in October, Rovio had announced a 16 per cent reduction in its workforce following lower-than-expected growth, and said it would simplify around its three key businesses with the highest growth potential: games, media and consumer products.

Mikael Hed, who was CEO at the time but stood down at the start of 2015, said the steps needed to be taken “sooner rather than later, when we are in a good place to reignite growth” and that to succeed “we need to be the best at adapting to change”.