Zynga’s Shares Pop Nearly 12% On Lower-Than-Expected Losses

Zynga’s shares rose nearly 12 percent in after-hours trading on lower-than-estimated losses.

Zynga posted a net loss of $68,000 on about $203 million of revenue, so they managed to stay roughly break-even. Their top line revenues are down 36 percent year-over-year as Zynga deals with disastrous losses in its user base on the Facebook platform. At the same time, they haven’t made as strong a transition to mobile gaming platforms as other com

Daily active users are down to 30 million, or half of what they were a year ago. Monthly active users are similarly now less than half of what they were a year ago at 133 million.

Today, they have just three of the top games on the Facebook platform by daily active users, a far cry from the days when they dominated the charts.

Yet new CEO Don Mattrick argued to shareholders that he is making the changes necessary to return Zynga to its former glory.

“We believe we are poised for future growth,” he said on the earnings call. “I am confident that Zynga is rewiring itself in a meaningful way that will strengthen the core of our business and put us back on track to achieve even more significant growth and progress.”

Today, Mattrick just hired Clive Downie, from DeNA and previously Electronic Arts, to be its chief operating officer. Mattrick said in reorganizing Zynga, he’s flattened the management structure. Creative product leads now report directly to him.

“Entertainment is an excellence business,” Mattrick said, adding that Zynga is aiming to build games “with the fit, finish and polish that truly engages a mass market audience.”

In the last quarter, the company launched a number of new titles, including Fairy Tale Twist, Ninja Kingdom and Hit it Rich. In mobile games, they’ve launched 1 Word, which was with the KiK Messenger App, and CastleVille Legends. They also released New Scramble with Friends, Baseball Slam (3P), and CityVille KRE-O.

While monthly payers declined to 1.6 million in the third quarter from 3 million the year before, the average bookings per daily active user rose to 5.5 cents from 4.7 cents. It also rose 4 percent on a quarterly basis. (That’s how much a daily active user spends on average on virtual transactions in Zynga’s games.)

Zynga said that its revenue will decline even further in the fourth quarter to $175 million to $185 million – which is usually a lucrative holiday quarter for game makers. Its loss will be in the range of $21 million to 31 million, the company added.