Zynga Revenue And Profit Slide Year-Over-Year

Social game studio Zynga today reported earnings for the quarter ended September 30, revealing that both revenue and income showed downward trends year-over-year. Quarterly revenue was $177 million, down 13 percent from $202 million this period last year. On the income side, Zynga posted a loss of $57 million for the quarter, compared to a loss of $68,000 last year.

Zynga also shared various operational metrics for the latest quarter that showed downward trends. During the period, Zynga had 112 million monthly active users, compared to 133 million last year. Monthly unique users also slid year-over-year, falling from 97 million last year to 77 million this year.

Monthly unique payers dropped as well, coming it at 1.3 million this year, compared to 1.6 million last year. Another statistic broken out was daily active users, which totaled 26 million in the quarter, compared to 30 million during the same period last year.

Not everything was down year-over-year, however, as advertising and other revenue came in at $37 million, an increase of 32 percent compared to this period last year. FarmVille 2, Zynga Poker, and Hit It Rich! made up 27 percent, 22 percent, 12 percent of total online game revenue for the quarter, which was $140 million.

"We have been operating with purpose and it has taken us some time to transform our business as we faced some execution challenges in the quarter," Zynga CEO Don Mattrick said in a statement. "2014 has been an investment year for us as we assembled a new leadership team, reorganized the company, and reset our product pipeline. As we move forward and aggressively compete in an exciting market, we continue to believe that we are well positioned to take advantage of our global scale and diversified product portfolio, and we remain committed to working together as a team to deliver long term value for our consumers, employees, and shareholders."

One of the highlights for Zynga during the quarter was entering the sports category with its new brand, Zynga Sports 365. The company launched NFL Showdown in September across iOS and Android devices. In addition, Zynga released a new version of Zynga Poker in September, launched licensed game runner gamer Looney Tunes Dash!, and put out a series of updates for games such as FarmVille 2: Country Escape, Hit It Rich! Slots, and CSR Classics.

Looking ahead, Zynga said it expects revenue for the fourth quarter to be in the range of $170 million to $200 million, while the studio expects to record a net loss of between $51 million to $34 million. For the full year, Zynga projects revenue to be in the range of $668 million to $698 million, with a net loss expected to be in the range of $231 million to $214 million.