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	<title>paidContent &#187; newtoy</title>
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		<title>paidContent &#187; newtoy</title>
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		<title>Zynga Q1 2012 earnings by the numbers</title>
		<link>http://paidcontent.org/2012/04/27/zynga-by-the-numbers/</link>
		<comments>http://paidcontent.org/2012/04/27/zynga-by-the-numbers/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 27 Apr 2012 12:21:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Staci D. Kramer</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[ben schachter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mark pincus]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[newtoy]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Facebook shared some financials earlier this week as it heads to an IPO. Joined-at-the-hip Zynga reported, too -- but its execs had to talk to investors since it's already public. What do the numbers have to say?<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=paidcontent.org&#038;blog=33319749&#038;post=206999&#038;subd=gigaompaidcontent&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://gigaompaidcontent.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/markpincus.jpg"><img src="http://gigaompaidcontent.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/markpincus.jpg?w=300&#038;h=225" alt="" title="Mark Pincus" width="300" height="225"  class="alignright size-medium wp-image-207049" /></a>Earlier this week, Facebook <a href="http://paidcontent.org/2012/04/24/facebook/">filed pre-IPO financial results</a> that showed how much the social network relies on game developer Zynga for revenues. Thursday was Zynga&#8217;s turn as the startup that went public first reported its <a href="http://investor.zynga.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=667869">Q1 earnings</a>, including record results &#8212; and a loss following more investment in game development and the surprise $180 million acquisition of <em>Draw Something</em> parent OMGPOP.</p>
<p>Some numbers from the report and the earnings call struck me as particularly interesting:</p>
<p><strong>$392.2 million</strong>: Zynga&#8217;s most important <a href="http://gigaompaidcontent.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/farmville-strawberries-o.png"><img  title="FarmVille Strawberries" src="http://gigaompaidcontent.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/farmville-strawberries-o.png?w=168&#038;h=140" alt="" width="168" height="140" class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-110250" /></a>revenue metric is one a lot of people might not grok. The bulk of Zynga&#8217;s revenue is for virtual goods to use in its games like <em>FarmVille</em> and the new <em>CastleVille</em>. The accounting isn&#8217;t as simple as selling something outright. Instead, the company reports it as &#8220;bookings&#8221; &#8212; and those hit $392.2 million in Q1, up 15 percent year over year and 7 percent over the previous quarter.</p>
<p>Actual revenue for the quarter was $321 million. That was up 32 percent over last year but only 3 percent over Q4. Online game revenue hit $292.8 million, up 27 percent year over year but the same 3 percent over last quarter.</p>
<p><strong>$28.2 million</strong>: Advertising rose 117 percent year over year, which sounds impressive until you realize that it&#8217;s less than $30 million of Zynga&#8217;s quarterly revenue and that it, too, was up only 3 percent over the fourth quarter. (Zynga sees a positive in that it is up at all over what is typically the strongest quarter.) Zynga should continue to improve in advertising as it figures out how to best use its games to deliver. As a WWF user, the ads often make me want to pay for the ad-free version, so either way Zynga has a shot at improving ad-related income.</p>
<p>Zynga added reward-based ads to some games in Q1 and plans to expand the concept to more games this quarter. Players can acquire virtual goods by watching ads.<a href="http://gigaompaidcontent.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/words-with-friends-iphone-zynga-o.jpg"><img  title="Words With Friends Iphone Zynga" src="http://gigaompaidcontent.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/words-with-friends-iphone-zynga-o.jpg?w=93&#038;h=140" alt="" width="93" height="140" class="alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-108324" /></a></p>
<p><strong>22 million</strong>: Zynga&#8217;s mobile daily active users nearly doubled in Q1, to more than 22 million compared to 12 million for the previous quarter, thanks largely to <em>Words With Friends</em>, <em>Words With Friends</em> brand extension <em>Scramble with Friends</em>, and Zynga Poker. (Draw Something was only part of the company for 10 days before the quarter ended, so contributed little to Q1.)</p>
<p>Mobile is a trick box for Zynga. It needs mobile for growth but so far mobile users spend less. You need energy to run Cityville but you don&#8217;t need to buy letters to play WWF. The rapid growth of mobile draws another important Zynga metric down: average bookings per user or ABPU.</p>
<p>Zynga CEO Mark Pincus <a href="http://gigaom.com/2012/03/19/mark-pincus-interview-by-om-malik/">talked about the differences</a> between mobile and web with Om recently:</p>
<blockquote><p>One of the lessons we learned from the FarmVille for iPhone was that web and iOS are entirely different and have different mechanics. That is why we did FarmVille Express. The difference is that on mobile it is a 2-minute session versus a 45-minute session on the computer.</p>
<p>Words for Friends doesn’t do as well on Facebook as it does on the iPhone, because they are a mobile first experience. Our poker game does well on the mobile as well. Even Facebook is trying to figure it (mobile) out, we are all trying to figure it out.</p></blockquote>
<p><strong>4 million </strong>: Zynga introduced its first arcade game, <em>Zynga Slingo</em>. It turned on promotion in late March (sort of like using a portal firehose) and it&#8217;s now up to 4 million active daily users.</p>
<p><strong>$180 Million</strong>: Post-acquisition comments from Zynga execs, including Pincus, about looking for more deals, gave investors the yips, which in turn helped send shares down from decent double digits to below $9 recently. Pincus used the call to reset expectations, stressing plans to follow the example of <em>Words with Friends</em> by using the new asset to then create more organic growth.</p>
<p>Zynga bought WWF parent Newtoy in late 2010 for $53.3 million, mostly in cash. It&#8217;s extended the brand twice, meshing that with in-house games to spur mobile growth. Pincus said WWF has grown more than five times to 14 million daily active users. They hope to do the same with already-more-popular Draw Something and OMGPOP.</p>
<p>As for shopping for more deals, Pincus said when asked directly on the call:</p>
<blockquote><p>The strategy hasn&#8217;t changed since the road show &#8230; Our primary focus, the way we&#8217;ve built this business, has been organic development and growth of games that have led to a network that we have further leveraged to bring more successful games to market and that&#8217;s what you should expect us to continue to do for the bulk of our growth. This product line was the second major product line that we went out and acquired so it was a rare instance for us. &#8230; We felt we could organically build more from it but it does not represent a change in strategy.</p></blockquote>
<p>Macquarie Securities&#8217; Ben Schachter sees potential &#8212; and uncertainty:</p>
<blockquote><p>We continue to like the free-to-play model and the advertising potential inherent in ZNGA’s structural model; however, this is a crowded, competitive space that has few barriers to entry.</p></blockquote>
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			<media:title type="html">Mark Pincus</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">stacidk</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">Mark Pincus</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">FarmVille Strawberries</media:title>
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			<media:title type="html">Words With Friends Iphone Zynga</media:title>
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		<title>Zynga Doubles Down On Mobile With Newtoy Buy</title>
		<link>http://paidcontent.org/2010/12/02/419-zynga-buys-mobile-gamer-newtoy/</link>
		<comments>http://paidcontent.org/2010/12/02/419-zynga-buys-mobile-gamer-newtoy/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 02 Dec 2010 23:39:31 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Joseph Tartakoff</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[apple]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[companies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[entertainment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[games]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[iphone]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[m&a & venture capital]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mergers & acquisitions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mobile]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[zynga]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://paidcontent.wp.gostage.it/2010/12/02/419-zynga-buys-mobile-gamer-newtoy/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Zynga is doubling down on mobile games, buying mobile game developer Newtoy, which is best known for the hit iOS game Words With Friends. Du&#8230;<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=paidcontent.org&#038;blog=33319749&#038;post=155555&#038;subd=gigaompaidcontent&#038;ref=&#038;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Zynga is doubling down on mobile games, buying mobile game developer <a href="http://newtoyinc.com/wp/" title="Newtoy">Newtoy</a>, which is best known for the hit iOS game <em>Words With Friends</em>. During a conference call this morning, David Ko, who <a href="http://paidcontent.org/article/419-zynga-hires-yahoos-ko-as-mobile-chief/" title="joined Zynga">joined Zynga</a> as the company&#8217;s mobile chief in October, said the addition of Newtoy will help the social game giant extend <em>all</em> of its titles to the mobile phone.</p>
<p>Zynga currently has a dozen or so iPhone apps, and Ko said the company has seen &#8220;massive demand&#8221; for them. About 10 million people are using the company&#8217;s games on their phones. That figure should be more than doubled with the addition of <em>Words With Friends</em> and the other Newtoy titles, which have been downloaded more than 12 million times. Zynga says Newtoy, which has 23 employees, will now work on building its existing franchise and on launching new titles for Zynga.</p>
<p>The purchase of Newtoy is the latest in a string of acquisitions for Zynga. To date, however, only one of the company&#8217;s other buys &#8212; Japan-based Unoh, which <a href="http://paidcontent.org/article/419-zynga-breaks-into-japanese-mobile-gaming-market-with-acquisition-/" title="it bought up">it bought up</a> in August &#8212; has been mobile-focused.</p>
<p>Newtoy was founded two years ago by brothers Paul and David Bettner, who previously worked at Microsoft-owned game developer Ensemble Studios, which was best known for developing <em>Age of Empires</em>, and started Newtoy after Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) shut that studio down. This is the second Ensemble Studios spin-off that Zynga has bought. In October, <a href="http://paidcontent.org/article/419-zyngas-latest-purchase-bonfire-studios/" title="it purchased">it purchased</a> Bonfire Studios, a startup that was also founded by several former Ensemble employees. That acquisition formed the basis of Zynga&#8217;s Dallas studio.</p>
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