Angry Birds maker targets China market

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SHANGHAI, June 26 (UPI) -- The Finnish developer behind the Angry Birds franchise says it's targeting China as an important market even though fake Angry Birds products abound there.

As with many popular branded products, many items bearing counterfeit Angry Bird images and patterns are for sale in China, but officials with Rovio Entertainment Ltd. said they believe if Chinese fans were given a chance to buy genuine products, they would.

"There's an educational process to say, OK, this is the official, this is the unofficial product," Rovio China General Manager Paul Chen said.

"With the official you'll get exclusive designs, things others don't have, your friend who might have an unofficial T-shirt, they're not cool anymore because you have the latest official design," he told The Wall Street Journal.

"It's kind of like the way fashion works, where the uncool guy has last year's fall collection and you have this year's fall collection."

China is Rovio's second biggest market after the United States, and the company opened on office in Shanghai earlier this year.

In July the company will open its first two retail stores in Shanghai and Beijing, Cheng said, and would be opening several hundred stores across China over the next year and a half.

The company plans to open its first theme park in a city outside of Shanghai in October, Chen said.