Finnish game app developer Rovio said on Wednesday that it would launch mobile versions of the Angry Birds Friends on iOS and Android. It is the social version of the game that Rovio created for Facebook and has 60 million installs and 15 million monthly active users on FB.

Rovio has the 1.6 billion downloads of the Angry Birds game to thank for the doubling of its sales to $195 million in 2012. The company released on the same day its annual report that showed more than half of its revenue came from gaming revenues.

About 45 per cent come from non-gaming revenues such as IP licensing and consumer products.

The growing share of the non-gaming revenues is due to the shift in strategy by Rovio such as its promo in the App Store to give away for free in March the original Angry Birds game with the aim of acquiring new users who are also potential buyers of Rovio merchandise.

With the growth in its income, Rovio is now exerting more efforts to protect its copyright which is a major change in strategy in 2011 when the Finnish firm then said it didn't mind that the game was being copied, referring mainly to the huge Chinese market.

In contrast, in a statement, Rovio Chief Financial Officer Herkko Soininen said that the company would now continue to invest heavily in brand protection globally to protect the company's and fans' interest.

Rovio rolled out in 2012 four major bestselling games - Angry Birds Space, Amazing Alex, Bad Piggies and Angry Birds Star Wars - which boosted active monthly users across all platforms to 263 million in December.

The Angry Birds Star Wars is in the top 10 games in Apple's App Store while Bad Piggies is 31st and Angry Birds Space 32nd.

For the same period the number of Rovio employees also increased to 518 from 224.

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