Zynga expects to report a Q3 loss of between US$90m and US$105m

5 Oct 2012

Mark Pincus, CEO and founder, Zynga

Social gaming giant Zynga is expected to report a loss of between US$90m and US$105m for its third quarter on revenues of between US$300m and US$305m.

It is understood that the popularity of its Ville staple games are waning and the company has to write down a charge of US$85m in relation to its acquisition of OMGPOP.

For the full year, revenues are expected to be up to US$1.1bn, down from US$1.2bn originally projected.

“The third quarter of 2012 continued to be challenging and, while many of our games performed to plan, as a whole we did not execute to our satisfaction,” said Mark Pincus, CEO and founder, Zynga.

“We’re addressing these near-term challenges by implementing targeted cost reductions in the fourth quarter and rationalising our product R&D pipeline to reflect our strategic priorities. At the same time, we are continuing to invest in our mobile business where we have one of the strongest positions in the industry.

“These actions support our strategy to transition from being a first party web game developer to a multiplatform game network. We remain optimistic about the opportunity for social gaming and the power of our player network of 311m monthly active users.

“When we offer our players highly engaging content, they respond. FarmVille2 has been our most successful launch since CastleVille in terms of daily bookings, and we now offer three of the top 5 most popular mobile games in the US in terms of time spent, according to Nielsen,” Pincus said.

Zynga is report its third-quarter 2012 financial results on 24 October.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com