As Zynga continues its IPO holding pattern, it has to keep potential investors up-to-date with each new financial quarter.

For that reason, it's just updated its S-1 form with its Q3 2011 numbers.

Revenue for the three months ending 30 September was $306.8 million, up 80 percent year-on-year.

Net income was $12.5 million, down 54 percent compared to 12 months ago, presumably because of higher staff and operational costs.

Zynga's daily active users dropped 5 million from Q2 2011's total to 54 million, with monthly active users down 1 million to 227 million.

Zynga says it defines an active user as someone who plays a game. If someone plays two of its game within the metrics period, they count as two DAUs or MAUs. 

Mobile big shot

In terms of breaking out its mobile business, although the term 'mobile' is mentioned 95 times in the form, in terms of hard numbers, Zynga merely noted it had 11 games available on mobile platforms.

It also updated its mobile activity, saying this "grew more than ten-fold from November 2010 to September 2011, reaching an average of 9.9 million DAUs during the third quarter of 2011".

It's expected Zynga will float on the NASDAQ exchange the week before US Thanksgiving on 24 November, raising around $1 billion in the process.

[source: Zynga S-1]