By Star Chang, posted Jul 17, 2012 at 9:05 AM, 1,347 views,

Angry Birds Official Brand Store Opened in Shanghai to Compete with Knock-off Merchandise

ROVIO has just opened an official Angry Birds brand store in Shanghai, the first one outside its home base in Finland. The store which sells licensed apparel, iPhone/iPad cases and toys, is the first of 25 such outlets scheduled to open in China by the end of this year. The company will open its second outlet in Beijing within a month. A total of five stores will be open in Shanghai. An official t-shirt with Angry Birds-themed costs 259 yuan (US$40), while the prices of other goods are in the range of 100-300 yuan (US$15-47). The products sold in the stores are uniquely designed for Chinese consumers. The company said they are opening the stores to provide their fans with the easiest way to get authorized Angry Birds products …

Consumer in Shanghai felt that the price is rather high for these official Angry birds merchandise products. A US$40 t-shirt is not considered cheap compare to those which are selling on Taobao, the China largest online shopping site. A whole wide range of unofficial Angry birds t-shirt will cost only 29 to 49 yuan (US$4.5-7.6). Some of the Chinese consumer are very price sensitive on their dressing up, the price of the official t-shirt just isn’t attractive enough compare to those. An authorized Angry Birds-themed iPhone case costs 138 yuan (US$21), while similar products are selling about 15 yuan (US$2.3) on Taobao. With fierce competition, Rovio has just given away summer discount for their iPhone case, which are selling online for 58 yuan (US$9), for limited period only.

China is Rovio’s second-biggest regional market contributing almost 150 million downloads of the games. But like many other app developers, Rovio’s revenue from the mobile game is relatively limited because of piracy and lack of effective payment methods in China. Rovio plans to raise the portion of license income to 30 percent of its total income in China by the end of this year, compared with 10 percent now. Rovio will soon have more than 100 employees in China, compared with 11 now. The additional employees are for a new animation program studio in Shanghai and research centers for online games targeting Chinese users.p>

Besides the stores, Rovio plans to launch 10 to 20 Angry Birds theme parks in China, with the first one expected to open in Haining, Zhejiang Province, in October. The company will open amusement parks in collaboration with domestic partners with Angry Birds themes. ROVIO expects its China revenue to triple in 2012, thanks to booming license income from Angry Birds’ merchandise and amusement parks.

SOURCE: JFdaily (Chinese translated)