Zynga Q3-2013 results boost share price

The troubled San Francisco-based social gaming giant Zynga’s third quarter results released Wednesday turned out to be a little better than the market had expected, although hardly stellar.

Nevertheless, the company’s shares experienced a much-needed up to 13 percent improvement as it outlined its plans for the future and presented financial statistics.

At $316.637 million, revenue was up 3 percent, although investors will not be impressed by the 11 percent slide in advertising income – the worst in two years at $256 million. On the plus side, daily active users were up 10 percent to 60 million year-on-year, but that news was tempered by comparison with Q2-2012, when users peaked at 72 million.

Looked at on a monthly basis the year-on-year user stat was up a creditable 37 percent to 311 million, and even recorded an improvement of 9 million over Q2-2012.

Bottom line, the company suffered a net loss of $52.72 million…a disappointing slump from net income of $12.5 million achieved in the comparative period in 2011.

Revenue for the first nine months of 2012 was up 17 percent to $970 million compared to the same period in 2011.

Perhaps in a bid to inspire more investor confidence, Zynga also announced its intention to repurchase $200 million worth of its shares.

The company announced that its cost-cutting program was continuing…the industry saw evidence of that earlier this week with job lay-offs and office shutdowns . With a savings target of $20 million in Q4-2013, more paring is obviously planned.

“While the last several months have been challenging for us, Zynga remains well positioned to capitalize on the growth of social gaming,” said Pincus.

“It’s more clear than ever that along with search, shop and share, play is a fundamental pillar of the Internet.”

Mobile operations form a significant part of Zynga’s future plans:

“Mobile is the next major growth opportunity for Zynga,” Pincus opined, noting that all the company’s game teams have been reconfigured to craft titles for both mobile devices and the Web.

Zynga also plans to begin testing a “With Friends” mobile game network in the coming week.