By Herman Lai, posted Feb 4, 2012 at 2:53 AM, 451 views,

Rovio Finally Selling Angry Birds Merchandises on China’s Biggest E-commerce Platform

Rovio has continued to boost its presence and merchandising in China and now also appearing on a frequently visited online site in China — Alibaba’s Tmall. As there are dozens of fake Angry Birds Merchandises available on Taobao, it would be interesting to see how the company confronted the clones. The CEO of Rovio previously mentioned he would make use of the Shanzhai products. Could we see some of them this year?

The hit game developer is attempting to cash in on the Chinese market by selling authentic Angry Birds products as most of the Angry Birds spinoffs currently available in China are counterfeits. According to Rovio:

“We want more people to know that we are not only making games, but also a full suite of entertainment services including retail, animated short videos and comics.”

On its online store, it sells spinoffs ranging from T-shirts to food, including Angry Birds cookies targeting the upcoming Valentine’s Day.

Tmall holds almost 50 percent of China’s online B2C market. The total value of goods sold on the site in 2010 reached an estimated $60 billion, which is twice its 2009 total and higher than the $53 billion revenue recorded by eBay. Well, the figure sounds pleasing. But in fact, most of the Chinese don’t really care whether a product is real or fake as long as it looks and functions the same, and that should be the biggest challenge that Rovio has.

Previously, the Might Eagle Peter Vesterbacka announced nearly 40 million downloads of Angry Birds were made in China. Straight afterward, the company opened an official in Shanghai in October, and it is the first branch outside its native Finland, handling research, marketing and sales of Angry Birds-related products. Last month, before the Chinese New Year, the company cooperated with Sina Weibo to offer free downloads of its short video “Year of the Dragon” and comics.

Another popular game Fruit Ninja, has also followed the pace of Angry Birds in China, launched a new version of the game with Chinese New Year features. Last year, the company generated revenue of $6 million, where about 30 percent of the downloads of Fruit Ninja in 2011 came from China, so will we see Fruit Ninja to have a store on Tmall soon?

Click this link to visit Angry Birds Tmall store.

Source: TNW