FarmVille developer Zynga is on its way to record revenue as the company continues to dominate mobile gaming
- Zynga, the mobile-first developer behind games like "Words With Friends" and "FarmVille", reported second-quarter results that revealed the company is on track to generates its best sales since 2012.
- The company posted a 41% year-over-year increase in revenue to $306 million, with mobile revenue accounting for $287 million and recording its best performance in Zynga 's history.
- Zynga's flagship game, "FarmVille" - which allows users to cultivate their own digital farming community - celebrated its tenth anniversary in June, and the company announced a soft launch of the game's third iteration in July.
- Shares of the company rose 3.5% after its earnings report.
The creator of the decade-old, mega-hit mobile games "FarmVille" and "Words With Friends" is on pace to have one of the best years in company history.
Zynga, a mobile-first game developer, reported $306 million of revenue for the second quarter of 2019, representing a 41% jump from the same period last year. Mobile revenue accounted for $287 million, a 49% increase from last year and the highest in company history.
"Words With Friends," one Zynga's oldest and original games, recorded its best second-quarter mobile revenue and bookings in franchise history. The company's performance was also boosted by record revenue from "Empires & Puzzles" and "Merge Dragons!"
"A lot of the franchises that we have, whether it's Words With Friends, the upcoming Farmville 3, Merge Dragons!, they're reaching audiences that traditionally a lot of the game companies haven't reached," CEO Frank Gibeau said during an earnings call.
Following Zynga's strong quarter, the company rose its sales outlook for the year to $1.24 billion, a 37% increase from last year. If the $1.24 billion target is hit, it would be company's highest annual revenue since 2012. Zynga also expects its games to reach 2.4 billion people in 2019.
The company celebrated the ten-year anniversary of FarmVille in June, and rolled out a soft launch of game's third iteration in July as player demand continues to rise.
Zynga also introduced "Game of Thrones Slots Casino" in late May, which it said has already shown strong user engagement and monetization metrics, and the company plans to continue investing in the franchise to drive growth in the coming quarters.
Zynga is up 67% year-to-date.
