Strong Cash Flow Enable New Acquisitions for Zynga
Free-to-play games and customers acquisition are fundamental to the company revenue. Although Zynga had a negative balance in 2019 and 2020, with more than $1.6 billion on books, they continue with another part of their long-term acquisitions strategy.
Recognizing the Trends in the Industry
Zynga recognized the trend of consolidation a couple of years ago. According to the company leadership, gaming companies must have networks and resources for more effective promotion and delivery of live services and games.
In the past five years, Zynga acquired Peak Games studio that produces casual card games. The covered merge games with Gram Games acquisitions and puzzle games with Small Gian Games buy. In 2020 Zynga bought Peak and Rolic, and the trend continued this year.
Most Popular Zynga Games
It all started with Zynga Poker, and it’s still a trendy title with a lot of users. Along with poker, Zynga has other casino games like Black Diamond Casino, Wizard of Oz slots, Okey Plus, and Game of Thrones Slots. Since you can play for money in Zynga Poker, some argue Zynga’s social casinos are similar to real money online casino Canada. Casino games, however, are just a tiny piece of their game library.
CSR 2 racing is the newest in car-themed games like Car Restoration 3D, Build Roads or Fast Driver 3D. FarmVille has several sequels, and it’s still amongst more popular Zynga mages. A big part of the Zynga game catalogue are puzzle games like Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells, Empires & Puzzles, and Merge Dragons.
Strong Finish of 2020
Zynga had a solid finish for the last year. Their daily active users were up 77%, up to 36 million, which reflected the $600 million in revenue. It’s a rise of 52%. Although they finished the year with a $53 million loss, Zynga has $200 million in cash flow per quarter.
With solid cash flow, Zynga will continue to invest in acquisitions. There are several reasons to do so. Consolidation of the mobile gaming market is one of the reasons. Zynga also wants to add games with a vast user network, and adding new talent is also an important goal.
Advertisement and tracking users are crucial parts of monetizing policies, and some of the acquisitions happened because of that. For example, when Apple changed Identifier for Advertisers limiting data companies can have about users, Zynga bought Chartboost for $250 million. This move came in May this year, and getting in-app advertising and monetization platform will increase income in companies with more than 65 games and around 160 million monthly users.
Along with Chartboost, Zynga acquired Echtra Games in 2021. The company leaders said they would continue with the acquisition policy, regardless of the negative balance these big purchases bring at the end of the fiscal year.
