Zynga's turned in their first earnings report since their IPO, and it seems to have resonated with investors, as the stock is up nearly 7% as of this writing at $14.35 per share. Zynga reported full year bookings of $1.16 billion, up 38% from 2010, and revenue for the year of $1.14 billion, up 91% from 2010. Their Q4 bookings were $306.5 million, up 26% year-over-year, and up 7% from the previous quarter.
Founder and CEO Mark Pincus said, "2011 was another milestone year for Zynga's mission of connecting the world through games. We are seeing social games and more broadly play become one of the most popular pastimes on web and mobile. Zynga set new records in the year in terms of audience size, revenues and bookings. We saw great momentum in mobile and advertising and ended the year with a strong pipeline of new games. We are excited about the opportunities in front of us to continue delighting our current players and to bring play to millions of new people."
Looking at results, Zynga's spending rose, resulting in lower earnings per share. As their statement says, “GAAP net loss was $404.3 million in 2011, which included $510 million of stock-based compensation expense for restricted stock units issued to employees that, in accordance with GAAP, was previously unrecognized until the occurrence of a liquidity event, triggered by the Company's initial public offering.” In other words, generally accepted accounting principals meant they couldn't account for the shares given to employees until the IPO, so the impact is taken all at once. Still, even by non-GAAP accounting, Zynga's earnings per share dropped to $0.24 from $0.38 in 2010.
Zynga's audience increased, with Daily Active Users (DAU) rising to 54 million in Q4, up 13% from 2010's Q4 number of 48 million. Monthly Active Users (MAU) hit 240 million in Q4, up 23% over Q4 2010. As of December 31, Zynga had the top 5 most played games on Facebook based on DAUs. Zynga saw strong growth from mobile games in Q4 primarily from titles Dream Zoo, Words with Friends and Zynga Poker. These three games were among the top 10 grossing games on the iOS platform during the quarter.
Zynga expects bookings for 2012 to be in the range of $1.35 billion to $1.45 billion, with earnings per share (non-GAAP) in the range of $0.24 to $0.28.
