Zinga concocte son propre réseau social Zinga With Friends. L’éditeur de jeux sociaux Zynga a annoncé mardi, lors de la conférence « Zynga Unleashed », le lancement de son réseau social intitulé Zynga With Friends. Celui-ci permettra aux joueurs de créer leur profil, former des communautés autour des jeux, ajouter des amis et leur envoyer des messages, etc… Le réseau proposera également une fonctionnalité de discussion en temps réel et une barre d’informations défilante.
Zynga earnings preview: what the analysts think. Zynga’s stock price has been falling in recent days in advance of the company’s first quarter earnings report today. The shares are trading at $9.15 each right now — up slightly but down significantly from a recent high of $15.91 a share. Do investors know something? Analysts expect the company to report earnings of 5 cents a share on revenue of $316.8 million for the first quarter ended March 31. On AppData, Zynga has 281.6 million monthly active users and all five of the top five games. Colin Sebastian of Baird Equity Research said that he expects results to be in line or slightly below estimates of a profit of 6 cents a share for the quarter. He noted recently that Facebook said that Zynga accounted for 11 percent of its revenues in the first quarter — down from 12 percent in the fourth quarter. Michael Pachter, analyst at Wedbush Securities, also said he expects results to be in-line with expectations.
He expects Zynga shares to hit $17 each in the coming year. What Happened with Zynga’s IPO? CEO Mark Pincus Explains. Where there’s a mention of “tech,” the word “bubble” is never far behind. The wildly popular gaming company Zynga made its New York Stock Exchange debut at $10 per share, but dropped 5% on the first day of trading and didn’t recover, which had many analysts wondering if the company could live up to the hype. Zynga CEO Mark Pincus seems less concerned. ”Our goals were we want to raise a billion dollars. Through going public, we wanted to add some more great long-term investors to the company. All of that was successful,” Pincus told the Wall Street Journal. The CEO also pointed out that Zynga’s IPO was ”was many times larger than the other tech IPOs that had just happened recently.
We think we’re now well positioned to move forward in the future.” The other tech IPOs to which he refers could be LinkedIn, which raised $352.8 million at its New York Stock Exchange debut in May; Pandora, which raised at $234.9 million in June; and Groupon, which raised $700 million in November. IT'S OUT: This Is Zynga's IPO Road Show Presentation. Zynga’s Newest Title CastleVille Combines Rich Storylines, Fantasy, And Social Gaming In A Medieval World. As Zynga announced at an event a few weeks ago, the newest title in the “Ville” franchise, which includes FarmVille, FrontierVille, and CityVille, is CastleVille. The newest title from the social gaming giant allows players to build mini-empires from castles, craft art and armour and trade, and defend your kingdom in a medieval world. The game was created by the Zynga Dallas team, which was part of the social gaming giant’s acquisition of Bonfire Studios.
Zynga Dallas director Bill Jackson explains that the studio took key elements of each ‘Ville’ title and brought the best into CastleVille. He explains that CastleVille combines with elements of self-expression from FarmVille, the ability to build the fantasy city of your dreams with CityVille, and the rich narrative and storytelling features from FrontierVille. When first beginning the game, you’ll need to choose your character and build your look. Zynga has been churning out games over the past week months.
Zynga Adjusts Valuation from $10B to $7B — Will the Market Buy It? Zynga’s regulatory filing this morning shows that Zynga is preparing to offer 100 million shares at between $8.50 and $10. This could possibly net them up to $1 Billion if all goes well, and would price their entire company’s full worth at around $7 Billion, which is far lower than the $20 Billion that was suggested when Zynga first hinted at an IPO. The question is whether this valuation, which puts their trailing revenue multiple at around 7x on revenues of close to $1 Billion, is still expensive. As mentioned in yesterday’s analysis, EA sits around 2x and ATVI around 3x, which makes Zynga a more expensive and potentially risky stock.
It all depends on how strong you think Zynga will perform in the next few quarters, and what your exit strategy will be. Kim Mai Cutler at our sister site Inside Social Games does a more detailed analysis of the potential IPO, so if you’re considering investing take a look over there first and let us know if you’re planning to buy in.