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Mobile majority Zynga sees FY15 Q1 sales down 5% to $183 million

Losses will continue

Mobile majority Zynga sees FY15 Q1 sales down 5% to $183 million

US web and mobile game publisher Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA) has announced its FY15 Q1 financials, for the 3 months ending 31 March 2015.

Revenue was $183 million, up 8 percent year-on-year, but down 5 percent quarter-on-quarter.

More worryingly, Zynga made a loss of $46.5 million during the quarter, although this was better than the $61 million loss made 12 months ago.

It wasn't much difference from the $45 million loss it made three months ago.

Still, with $1.1 billion in cash and equivalents, Zynga isn't going to go out of business anytime soon.

Hard tacks

Nevertheless, with new/old CEO Mark Pincus keen to stamp his mark on the company, Zynga has decided to ensure losses will be curbed in future.

Over the next three month, it will be cutting 18 percent of its workforce - some 364 staff - something which when completed by the end of December, will save it $45 million annually.

In additional, Zynga expects to save $55 million a year by reducing costs of external and centralised services.

In such a manner, it hopes to strip $100 million of annual costs from its operations, although it will book restructuring costs of between $18 to $22 million in Q2.

Zynga will be hoping new RTS Empires & Allies will have an impact

"We need to create an empowered, entrepreneurial culture that fosters more creativity and innovation," commented Pincus.

We need to create an empowered, entrepreneurial culture that fosters more creativity and innovation
Mark Pincus

"Over the years we've seen that tighter, more nimble teams can drive faster innovation and deliver more player value.

"As a result, today we announced a cost reduction program to focus, simplify and align us against our most promising opportunities.

"This was a hard but necessary decision and I believe this plan puts us in the best long term position for success."

Better news

More positive news comes with the data that 63 percent of Zynga's sales come from its mobile games, which is up 84 percent year-on-year.

Focusing on five categories: Action Strategy, Social Casino, Invest & Express, Casual and Racing, the company expects to launch between 6 to 8 new mobile games in 2015.

In particular, Zynga remains strong in social casino with Zynga Casino increasing its bookings up 14 percent quarter-on-quarter and 55 percent year-on-year.

More generally, FarmVille, Zynga Casino and Words With Friends combined saw booking up 28 percent year-on-year.

[source: Zynga]

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.