1）据pocketgamer报道，芬兰网站Arvopaperi最近称Rovio估值达60亿至90亿美元，但并指出这种估算来源（据称Rovio可能于2013年在美国进行IPO）。

angry-birds-dollars(from droidnerds.com)

Rovio首席营销官Peter Vesterbacka曾表示，公司2011年销售额约1亿美元，如果按Arvopaperi这种估值超过销售额20倍的情况来算，Rovio在2012年的收益至少需达到3亿美元。

值得注意的是，Rovio最大的股东是首席执行官Mikael Hed的父亲Kaj Hed（游戏邦注：他和Rovio联合创始人Niklas Hed是叔侄关系），他在Rovio创立时至少投入了100万美元。从芬兰有关部门的登记情况来看，他旗下的Trema International Holding公司持有69.7%的Rovio股权，而Accel Partners和Atomico Invest则分别持有10%的股权。这些投资者在2011年3月向Rovio投入4200万美元。

该公司其他股东包括Niklas Hed（持股4.3%），Peter Vesterbacka（3.1%），Mikael Hed（0.6%）、Felicis Ventures（1%），而Rovio员工共持有1.3%股权。

2）comScore最新报告显示，加拿大、法国、德国、意大利、日本、西班牙、美国、英国的移动媒介使用率已经超过50%，这意味着有半数用户通过智能手机访问网站、应用程序和下载内容。但实际上，移动设备使用率最高的地区来自智能手机覆盖率较低的国家。

日本有76.2%人口使用移动媒介，但该地区智能手机普及率不足17%，而英美地区的智能手机覆盖率却分别占比51.3%和41.8%，有56.6%和55.2%手机用户访问移动媒介。

报告还指出，移动设备的媒介、网页使用率仍然低于PC设备。从2011年美国地区的情况来看，手机的互联网使用率仅占比5.2%，平板电脑占比2.5%，其他移动设备占比0.5%，这三者合计仅占8.2%，而其余部分均来自PC设备。

尽管Android是最受欢迎的智能手机平台，但苹果产品占据2011年美国最畅销移动设备前三甲，在欧洲市场也占据前两名席位。

smartphone mobile media(from salon.com)

3）Berg Insight最新报告指出，2011年采用双核处理器的智能手机出货量达6000万部（游戏邦注：首部支持双核处理器的智能手机于2011年初问世）。

2011年全球智能手机销量增长59%，共达4.7亿部，其中以高端智能手机（售价超过400欧元）和低端设备（售价约100欧元）发展最为显著。

高端移动设备销量从2010年的7500万部增长至2011年的1.5亿部，而低端设备销量则从2010年的1000万部左右增长至2011年的7000万部。

三星在2011年市场份额达20.2%，苹果为19.8%，而诺基亚则是16.4%。

4）据venturebeat报道，苹果日前宣布收购应用搜索引擎Chomp，将利用Chomp技术及人才，优化App Store应用检索效能。

Chomp(from venturebeat)

Chomp本身就是一个应用程序及网站，支持用户通过关键字从中搜索iPhone、iPad和Android应用，此外还提供了应用评级、热门免费应用、流行应用、新应用、促销应用等多项服务。

Chomp总部位于旧金山，至今已融资250万美元。

5）西雅图手机社交游戏公司Z2Live（代表作《Trade Nations》）日前宣布收购温哥华独立开发商Big Sandwich Games（代表作《Hoard》），将后者的9名成员纳入自己的团队。

Z2Live团队规模在过去一年中从16名员工增长至80人（这里不包括Big Sandwich成员），计划招聘更多新成员。该公司成立于2006年，由Rocksatr温哥华元老成立，曾与EA共同开发《Army of Two: The 40th Day》等游戏，已通过其跨平台引擎Clubhouse Engine推出家用主机、手持设备和手机等游戏。

battle-nations(from venturebeat)

Z2Live目前已有2500万用户，主打游戏包括《Battle Nations》、《Trade Nations》和《MetalStorm》。

6）手机应用商店GetJar最近推出广告赞助虚拟货币GetJar Gold，支持用户通过下载Android应用赢取这种虚拟货币，并将其用购买GetJar、Android Market和亚马逊Appstore等平台的付费应用，以及游戏中的IAP道具及虚拟商品。

getjar_gold_main(from droidmatters.com)

这些虚拟货币由希望推广应用的发行商和内容供应商赞助，开发者可通过绑定GetJar SDK参与这个虚拟货币项目。

7）移动营销公司mBlox最近发布的信息图表显示，有89%年龄在18-24岁的用户每天在移动设备上的投入时间达1-5小时，还有10%每天投入时间为5-10小时左右。

有34%用户比较信任自己使用过的品牌进行的推广和营销，40%用户只想要与自己有关的促销信息。

YoungMobileUseIG(from mblox)

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

1）Speculation in Finnish press values Rovio at more than $6 billion

by Jon Jordan

With Nokia losing its polish, Finnish journalists have been happy to jump onto the Angry Birds story.

And now they’re digging into some of the financial issues surround the company; most notable among which is how much the company is worth.

Zynga was rumoured to have offered over $2 billion for it in 2011, while various Rovio insiders have pushed the valuation higher.

Now Finnish website Arvopaperi has made its own attempt.

Without citing any sources, it puts the US valuation of the developer at between $6 to 9 billion.

Rovio is expected to file for IPO in 2013, possibly in the US.

Big bird

This is quite a leap, given that CMO Peter Vesterbacka said the company’s 2011 annual sales were around $100 million – and even taking into account his oft repeated mantra that it’s ‘insanely profitable’.

Assuming Arvopaperi’s argument that such a fast growing company could be valued at 20 times sales, this would require Rovio’s revenue in 2012 to be at least $300 million.

That’s a lot of t-shirts and plushes, given the most direct cash Rovio can currently make from a mobile user is the price of a game (99c-$4.99) and a 99c in-app purchase.

Big daddy

More interesting, perhaps, is the detective work that’s been carried on Rovio’s ownership.

It’s known the main shareholder was Kaj Hed, father of CEO Mikael Hed and uncle to executive Niklas. He invested at least $1 million into the company when it was a start up.

Checking with the Finnish governmental registry, it’s revealed that his Trema International Holdings owns 69.7 percent of the company, with investors Accel Partners and Atomico Invest both having a 10 percent share.

They injected $42 million into the company in March 2011.

Other shareholders include Niklas Hed (4.3%) Peter Vesterbacka (3.1%), Mikael Hed (0.6%), Felicis Ventures (1%), while Rovio’s employees have a collective 1.3 percent share.（source:pocketgamer）

2）comScore: Japan, An Early Mover In Mobile, Trails The U.S., Others In Smartphones

Ingrid Lunden

Smartphone users are, country by country, starting to gradually outnumber those who are using feature phones, and at the same time, consumers have passed a different kind of penetration: a majority are now using mobile devices to do a lot more than just make phone calls.

A lengthy annual report out from comScore today, surveying mobile usage across Canada, France, Germany Italy, Japan, Spain, the U.S. and U.K., found that mobile media usage has passed the 50 percent mark, meaning that more than half of us are accessing the web, apps and content downloads on our smartphones. But it’s not always the case that more smartphones always equals more media usage. In fact, the highest usage of mobile media comes from the country with the lowest smartphone penetration.

It’s Japan, where comScore says 76.2 percent of the population is using mobile media services, but where, surprisingly, less than 17 percent have smartphones. This is in contrast to the U.K. and U.S., where the correlation is a little more direct: smartphones now respectively account for 51.3 and 41.8 percent of all devices, and 56.6 percent and 55.2 percent of mobile users are accessing mobile media.

Ironically, it seems that Japan’s early move into mobile content – the i-mode service from DoCoMo, launched in the 1990′s, being one of the very first plays at offering more than just voice and text to users – is partly to blame.

comScore notes that the prevalence of those services and handsets presented a “barrier to entry” for smartphone makers, who perhaps didn’t have as hungry a market to serve. Smartphones are making more headway Japan now, comScore says, with Android and iOS platforms accounting for 94.1 percent of devices sold and more devices coming online at lower price points. (One of those, a Disney Mobile phone with NTT Docomo running a forked version of Android, is pictured here.)

Mobile still a niche player. Japan is not the only surprise in this report. Another is that even with a majority of the people using mobile devices to access media, web usage is still minor compared to PCs. comScore notes that in the U.S. in December, handsets contributed 5.2 percent, tablets 2.5 percent and “other” devices 0.5 percent of Internet access. Together that still only makes 8.2 percent, with computers accounting for the rest. Other countries surveyed had similarly low numbers:

One other interesting disconnect in the research is that although Android is the more popular platform overall, it turns out that Apple accounted for the top three devices sold in the U.S. in 2011, and the top two in the European countries surveyed by comScore. So while Android is the platform winner, Apple wins the day on devices.（source:techcrunch）

3）Global dual-core smartphone shipments hit 60m in 2011

by Zen Terrelonge

Milestone reached after device unveiling one year ago.

The first smartphones to support dual-core processors were revealed at the start of 2011 and Berg Insight says devices featuring the tech reached worldwide shipments of 60 million by the close of the year.

Now, high-end phone manufacturers look to improve upon dual-core performance with the unveiling smartphones with quad-core processors this year, with the HTC Endeavour and Samsung Galaxy S III thought to be among them.

Total smartphone sales were up 59 percent to 470 million units worldwide in 2011, with high-end smartphones priced at over €400 and low-cost devices priced at around €100 accounted for most of the growth, according to the report.

Additionally, high-end device sales doubled from 75 million units in 2010 to approximately 150 million units in 2011, while sales of low-cost smartphones grew from approximately 10 million units in 2010 to 70 million units in 2011.

Samsung secured the highest market share with 20.2 per cent, while Apple had 19.8 per cent and Nokia finished the top three with 16.4 per cent.（source:mobile-ent）

4）Apple acquires app discovery tool Chomp

Meghan Kelly

Apple has reportedly acquired Chomp today, a mobile-application search tool, because searching through the App Store for something new is a pain in the app.

Chomp is an application itself, as well as a website, that will let you search any keyword for the iPhone, iPad and Android. It then provides ratings, top free apps, tending applications, new apps, apps on sale, and more. TechCrunch is reporting that Apple will use Chomp’s technology, along with its talent, to redesign how people find apps through the App Store.

The company’s product advisor and Digg co-founder Kevin Rose tweeted soon after the report surfaced saying, “Woo, Apple buys Chomp, stoked to have been involved! Huge congrats to the Chomp team!”

The App Store has often been criticized for not having an easy way to find the application you — particularly if you don’t know you want it. It is broken down by category, such as utilities, games, business, and it also has “top 25″ lists. But it’s still difficult if you’re a new app developer to get App Store publicity.

The acquisition may show Apple’s intent to use its cash to reinvest in its products, as oppose to give out dividends. Apple had its first shareholders meeting today since the death of co-founder Steve Jobs. During this meeting current chief executive Tim Cook said the company had more than enough money to run on, and was heavily considering how to use Apple’s cash to benefit its shareholders. The amount paid for Chomp is currently unknown.

Chomp is headquartered in San Francisco, Calif. and has raised around $2.5 million in funding from Ron Conway, Aydin Senkut, David Lee, Auren Hoffman, Brian Pokorny, and BlueRun Ventures.（source:venturebeat）

5）Mobile social developer Z2Live buys Big Sandwich

by Eric Caoili

Seattle-based mobile social game company Z2Live (Trade Nations) has acquired Hoard developer Big Sandwich Games, an independent outsourcing and development studio based in Vancouver. Terms for the deal were not disclosed.

“The acquisition represents a key part of our long-term strategy to build, operate, and scale genre-defining games,” says Z2Live COO Lou Fasulo. The company has given all of its new members from Big Sandwich’s team stock in Z2Live.

The Big Sandwich purchase adds the studio’s nine employees to Z2Live’s fast-growing operations — in just the last year, the company has increased its headcount from 16 workers to 80 (not including Big Sandwich’s staff). It recently relocated to a new building in Downtown Seattle to accommodate that growth, too.

Z2Live hints that it will also recruit heavily at the new studio, which has been rebranded Z2Live Games Vancouver. The company notes that it can now tap into Vancouver’s talent-rich market, which is also home to regional branches for major publishers like Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, and Rockstar Games.

Big Sandwich Games was founded in 2006 by Rockstar Vancouver veterans, and has shipped titles for home consoles, handhelds, and mobile with its cross-platform Clubhouse Engine. It’s also co-developed titles like EA’s Army of Two: The 40th Day and Slant Six Games’ SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation.

Z2Live set up shop in 2009 to build a platform for iOS multiplayer and push notifications, but then changed its focus to developing free-to-play social and multiplayer games for mobile after Apple launched its Game Center service.

Since then, the company has seen more than 25 million users around the world playing its microtransactions-based iOS games, including releases like Battle Nations, Trade Nations, and MetalStorm. （source:gamasutra）

6）GetJar launches Android-based virtual currency across GetJar, Android Market and Amazon Appstore

by Jon Jordan

Building on the success of its paid apps for free Gold program, GetJar has announced Gold virtual currency.

In keeping with its free for consumers philosophy, you’ll be able to earn Gold currency by downloading Android apps.

Once accumulated, you’ll be able to spend Gold on paid Android apps from GetJar, Android Market and Amazon Appstore for Android, as well as for in-app purchases in games and apps that support the platform.

Cash in hand

Funding for the currency will be provided by marketing spend from publishers and content companies who want to get their apps more widely distributed on GetJar.

Of course, developers who want to take advantage of Gold virtual currency will have to integrate the GetJar SDK.

“The virtual nature of the currency and its linking to the global advertising spend solve two major problems that the traditional billing platforms have struggled with – low conversion rates due to the complicated user experience, and the lack of access to global markets,” said GetJar CEO Ilja Laurs.

“Our early results are showing significant increases in both revenue and conversion, and we expect developers will experience an increase of up to 10 times for participating.”（source:pocketgamer）

7）Infographic: What mobile users really want from their device

by Zen Terrelonge

Most don’t want to be tracked by companies, but a third desire location-based deals.

Mobile marketing specialist mBlox has explored how in tune young adults really are to their smartphones and tablets.

Results show that 89 per cent spend up to five hours on their device each day, while ten per cent spend as much as ten hours using them.

With such a high amount of usage by device owners, the infographic highlights how much users really know about mobile marketing and what they want from their gadgets.（source:mobile-ent）