Zynga posts $5.6m profit last quarter after predicting $9.5m loss
Meanwhile, company founder Mark Pincus reduces personal voting power from 70 per cent to ten per cent
Turning around its fortunes, Zynga posted a profit in the first quarter of 2018 after predicting a $9.5 million loss for the period.
Recording a total income of $5.6 million, Zynga came in $15.1 million above its projections. Meanwhile, EBITDA was $6.6 million above estimates for the period, up by of $9.9 million year-over-year to $26.6 million.
Total revenue was up to $208.2 million for the period, an increase of seven per cent year-on-year.
Mobile revenue was up by 13 per cent year-over-year, reaching $183 million compared to $162 million over the same period in 2017. Additionally, mobile accounted for 88 per cent of total revenue for the quarter, up from 82 per cent the year prior.
Reporting its best mobile audience numbers in four years, the social games maker hit 23 million daily active users and 82 million monthly active users. Across all platforms, Zynga surpassed its 2017 first quarter numbers, reaching 25 million DAUs 94 million MAUs compared to 21 million and 72 million respectively.
Zynga's core games saw growth during the period compared to the first quarter last year. Words with Friends was up by 18 per cent, CSR Racing 2 was up by two per cent, and Zynga Poker was up by 13 per cent.
"We had a great start to 2018, outperforming guidance in the quarter across all key financial measures and delivering our highest mobile audience in over four years," said Zynga. "We are pleased with the player engagement we're seeing across our forever franchises - CSR2, Words With Friends and Zynga Poker - and continue to make strong progress towards our near-term margin goals. "
Zynga also announced a restructuring of its management with founder Mark Pincus levelling his voting rights in the company from 70 per cent to ten per cent, establishing voting parity for all company shareholders. Pincus will now serve on Zynga's board of directors as non-executive chairman.
"We re-established Zynga as a leading social game developer and today, we have the strongest mobile portfolio in company history," said CEO Frank Gibeau. "We welcome this decision as a significant sign of confidence from Mark in both the management team and in the progress Zynga is making in its growth strategy."
Coupled with the news is an announcement from Zynga that it will issue a new $200 million share repurchase programme. This follows the completion of the company's existing $200 million repurchase programme which saw it buy back 67 million shares at an average price of $2.99 each.