Angry Birds for Android projected to bring $12 million a year in ad revenue to Happy Humans

Angry Birds has been downloaded 12 million times from iOS devices, each time costing the buyer a 99 cent charge. This has brought approximately $8 million to game designer Rovio after Apple takes its 30% cut. The game has also been downloaded 5 million times for free from the Android Market and unlike the version available for iOS devices, the Android model of the game is supported by advertisements.

Rovio's CEO Peter Vesterbacka says that by the end of this year (which, folks, is only about 4 weeks away), he projects earnings of $1 million a month with the advertisement supported version of Angry Birds that is free to download from the Android Market. And for those who wonder how Google makes money on an open-source operating system like Android, the Mountain View based firm takes a percentage of the cash generated by the ads, which are generated from Google owned AdMob. For those Android users who don't like to see the advertisements while they play, we reported yesterday that Rovio is working on a paid version of the game for the OS that will be ad-free.

Veseterbacka appears on the video below, which was created by AdMob for mobile developers. While he is pretty mum on the $12 million a year that Angry Birds could be making from ads, he does talk about the 65 million minutes that Apple iPhone users spend playing the game each day.  He also discusses the many ways to monetize a hot app such as through charging for downloads, collecting for ads, or even creating toys based on characters from the game. Oh, didn't we mention yesterday that plush dolls based on Angry Birds are now being sold?

source: TeleCrunch