Zynga has not only beaten analyst’s quarter predictions, they have smashed them.
For the period ending March 31st 2012, revenue climbed by an uber 32% to $321 million dollars. User figures understandably
rose alongside it:
DAU's increased to 65 million, up by 6% from the same quarter last year.
MAU's reached 292 million, up by 24% from the same quarter last year.
MUU's breached the 180 million mark (182 million), up by 25% from the same quarter last year.
The 5 Fact Take Away From Zynga:
1) Zynga has learned their mistake in release scheduling:
Numbers plummeted when they launched the majority of their titles in 2011 in the last 6 months of the year. 2012 has already has seen two new web games and four mobile games released in this first quarter alone, with more on the way.
2) Hidden Object Games are rocking:
Hidden Chronicles has become the largest hidden object on Facebook; a strong feat considering it was only launched this quarter and has already attracted 7 million daily active users.
3) Mobile leads the way:
CEO Pincus in Zynga's earning call pointed that the $183 million dollar acquisition of OMGPOP has not affected their earnings to a significant degree considering how late in the quarter it occurred.
That being said, even if you exclude Draw Something they still reached 22 million mobile DAU's, almost double the 12 million achieved in the same quarter last year. Zynga as part of their divorce from Facebook is obviously pushing hard on the mobile front, and Pincus
stressed exactly that:
“We have been able to dramatically increase the size of our mobile network. We are focused on getting the product experience right, building our network, distribution, and bringing hits to market in a repeatable way.”
4) Monetization through Advertising:
Zynga is expanding their ad reach, as FarmVille users can currently earn virtual currency by viewing ads. While this is nothing new, Zynga has added new advertiser partners like Scott Miracle Grow and Kia Motors, which explains why their ad revenue doubled to 28 million compared to the previous year's quarter.
5) Increased Localization efforts:
It seems international revenue doubled this year, attributed to Zynga knuckling down on improving not only their localization efforts, but their payment systems for internal players as well. Region specific content is expected, as their social games are now accessible in over 28 countries with support for 18 different languages.
Expect mobile development and maintaining new title releases to be the focus of the Zynga Unleashed event later this year.
Douglas Stewart is a staff writer at iQU. When he is not writing, he devours books, plays an excessive amount of games, and is working on his upcoming fiction novel that (naturally) involves intersections between technology, gaming and society. Follow Douglas
@TheGearCog 
