Zynga has announced its Q1 2020 financials, for the three months ending 31 March 2020.

Despite Covid-19, and all Zynga staff now working-from-home, the company saw GAAP revenues of $404 million, up 52 per cent year-on-year.

Bookings, which is the raw cash total taken during the quarter, were up 18 per cent to $425 million.

(The difference between the two are deferred revenues, which are required under the US GAAP accounting standards.)

The main drivers of this growth were the games Zynga acquired in 2018; notably Small Giant’s Empires & Puzzles and Gram Games’ Merge Dragons.

Losses for a reason

Indeed, in keeping with its earnout agreement with Small Giants, Zynga has paid the Finnish developer the first of three instalments.

The $122 million transferred meant that Zynga posted a loss of $104 million during the quarter, although obviously this is more of an accounting loss than an operational loss.

Its adjusted EBITDA for the quarter (a measure of cashflow) was $68 million.

Zynga has around $1.4 billion in cash and equivalents in the bank and is looking to acquire more developers in future.

The company pointed out that it now has three games - Farmville 3, Puzzle Combat and Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells - in soft launch, and that it expects to release some of these titles in the second half of 2020.

Zynga also raised its full year guidance by $50 million to $1.65 million.