With 60 million MAUs, Talking Friends company Outfit7 looks to open up its distribution network

A mark of how quickly the smartphone ecosystem is expanding, it was in April when Talking Friends studio Outfit7 claimed it was out downloading Rovio, being the fastest company to go from zero to 100 million mobile downloads.

Since then, the three Angry Birds games have strapped on the afterburners, passing the 500 million mark.

Still, Outfit7's no slouch. Its various character apps have now been downloaded 225 million times across iOS and Android, with executive chairman Narry Singh pointing out that the second 100 million was racked up almost twice as fast as the first.

Yet, he places more significance on the company's 60 million monthly active users, especially thanks the apps' family-friendly focus and its global distribution.

"There's huge value in a distribution network with such scale," he explains.

"There are only a handful of companies that can offer this, and we think this is a sector that going to see a couple of companies dominating and the rest fighting over the crumbs."

Of course, Outfit7 also has plenty of plans in terms of building out what might be labelled more conventional lines based on the back of Tom Cat and his chums. For example, it signed a deal with William Morris Endeavor in June for IP extension into books, TV, film etc.

However, just as we're been hearing off-on rumours that Rovio is preparing to become a game or app publisher, similar thinking has clearly been undertaken at Outfit7.

Indeed, it's already run a couple of experiments under the brand Fun Network, although Singh's currently tight-lipped about saying too much about the company's plans.

He is happy to reveal something about Outfit7's userbase.

"We have users in over 100 countries, around half of our audience is in Asia and we're seeing growth biased towards Android that's consistent with its scale in that market," he says.

And it's this reach, combined with the promise it can help developers to finance and distribute their games, that suggests this is topic we'll be returning to very soon.