Rovio Q1 earnings: It could have been worse for maker of Angry Birds

Life has not been easy for Rovio, the maker of the Angry Birds video game series, since the Finnish company went public last fall. Given its rocky start as a public company, investors were mostly breathing a sigh of relief today that the company’s latest earnings report was not the disaster some had feared.

On the revenue side, the company reported that sales in the three months ending in March fell 1 percent to $78 million. The drop was mainly due to declines in revenue from brand licensing, while gaming revenue actually ticked up a bit by .4 percent. On the profit side, the company doubled its profits to $12 million for the quarter as it cut marketing costs.