{"id":104131,"date":"2019-05-02T17:06:30","date_gmt":"2019-05-03T00:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=104131"},"modified":"2023-01-12T11:40:28","modified_gmt":"2023-01-12T17:40:28","slug":"zynga-stock-hits-seven-year-high-on-record-q1-revenues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zynga-stock-hits-seven-year-high-on-record-q1-revenues\/","title":{"rendered":"Zynga Stock Hits Seven-Year High on Record Q1 Revenues: Turnaround Complete, Says Social Giant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shares in social games giant Zynga soared to their highest levels since May 2012 on Thursday, despite the San Francisco-based company booking a worse-than-expected loss.<\/p>\n

\"Zynga\"
The surge in market confidence in Zynga was buoyed by better-than-expected performance by the company\u2019s new acquisitions, which suggests the social gaming giant is onto a good thing after the ups and downs of the last six years. (Image: Zynga)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Zynga reported Q1 net losses of $129 million, more than double its previous guidance of $59 million. So why have analysts and investors just lost their minds over Zynga stock?<\/p>\n

The flip side is that the company has — paradoxically — lost money due to its new acquisitions performing way better than expected — specifically, Merge Dragons and Empires & Puzzles — which has required Zynga to pay out one-off performance bonuses to the games’ creators and former owners.<\/p>\n

But the new games have boosted Zynga\u2019s bottom line: revenue was up by 27 percent for the quarter to $265 million, while mobile revenue increased 35 percent to $246 million and now accounts for 93 percent of Zynga\u2019s business.<\/p>\n

Zynga Poker in Limbo<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Zynga\u2019s classic games performed less well than the new acquisitions. Zynga Poker — which is the biggest online poker site in the world, with millions of users — fell by 17 percent, year on year.<\/p>\n

The company blamed the residual impact of platform changes imposed by Facebook last year, as well as adjustments to its in-game economy.<\/p>\n

\n

Zynga Poker was designed for desktop and has fared less well since the world migrated to mobile. In 2013, it experimented with real-money gaming in the UK in partnership with bwin, in anticipation of the expected liberalization of online poker in the US.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It would have only taken a small percentage of Zynga Poker\u2019s 32 million players to convert to real money to create a hugely lucrative online poker ecology, and perhaps even ignite a second poker boom.<\/p>\n

But at the time, Zynga itself was experiencing a downturn<\/a> and was accused of spreading itself too thinly, ignoring its core products in a desperate search to find the next big thing.<\/p>\n

When the US failed to embrace real-money online poker as had been anticipated, the project was abandoned, and the company went back to the basics.<\/p>\n

Zynga Back on Track<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The surge in market confidence on Thursday was driven by the possibility that Zynga has found the \u201cnext big thing\u201d but through smart M&A activity, rather than expending time and recourses on its own hit-and-miss development efforts.<\/p>\n

The real story is that Zynga has, through M&A, massively reweighted its portfolio away from older, harder-to-grow games, and towards younger, fast growing games,\u201d said Doug Creutz, Senior Media, Entertainment, and Gaming Analyst, Cowen and Company.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Zynga president of publishing Bernard Kim told GameDaily that the company\u2019s \u201cturnaround is complete.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zynga expects a return to growth for Zynga Poker in the second half of the year, aided by the introduction of its World Poker Tour Themes \u2018Spin and Win\u2019 feature.<\/p>\n

While its social slots portfolio was also down, 3 percent on last year, the company said it believes its new Game of Thrones<\/em>-themed slot will enhance engagement. The game is currently undergoing testing — although, with just three weeks left of a series that has spanned eight years and 69 episodes, you have to question the timing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shares in social games giant Zynga soared to their highest levels since May 2012 on Thursday, despite the San Francisco-based company booking a worse-than-expected loss. Zynga reported Q1 net losses of $129 million, more than double its previous guidance of $59 million. So why have analysts and investors just lost their minds over Zynga stock? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":104132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,22988],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nZynga Stock Hits Seven-Year High on Record Q1 Revenues<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Zynga Poker may be in the doldrums, but Zynga posted record revenues in Q1 despite a net loss of $129 million. Stock is higher than it has been since 2012.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zynga-stock-hits-seven-year-high-on-record-q1-revenues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Zynga Stock Hits Seven-Year High on Record Q1 Revenues\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Zynga Poker may be in the doldrums, but Zynga posted record revenues in Q1 despite a net loss of $129 million. Stock is higher than it has been since 2012.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zynga-stock-hits-seven-year-high-on-record-q1-revenues\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-05-03T00:06:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-01-12T17:40:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/zynga.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zynga-stock-hits-seven-year-high-on-record-q1-revenues\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zynga-stock-hits-seven-year-high-on-record-q1-revenues\/\",\"name\":\"Zynga Stock Hits Seven-Year High on Record Q1 Revenues\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zynga-stock-hits-seven-year-high-on-record-q1-revenues\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/zynga-stock-hits-seven-year-high-on-record-q1-revenues\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/zynga.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-05-03T00:06:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-01-12T17:40:28+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"Zynga Poker may be in the doldrums, but Zynga posted record revenues in Q1 despite a net loss of $129 million. 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