Zynga, the social gaming giant that ruled rode the early days of Facebook to massive popularity, is experiencing something of a rejuvenation in recent months.
The company is reporting positive growth for 2016 and Q4 earnings that were beyond Wall Street’s expectations. This is especially good news coming from a company that’s always struggling to find its next, big hit.
According to a report from Nasdaq.com, Zynga CEO Frank Gibeau crowed about its big year in a recent conference call to investors saying:
We had a strong Q4 and made significant progress this year in our turnaround and we’re encouraged by the fundamentals of our business as we head into 2017. We’re pleased with the performance of our live services and the quality of our new releases as we improved profitability and continued to sharpen our operating model.
Gibeau went on to report that long-time favorites like Words with Friends and Zynga Poker were still performing well, as were new titles like CSR2 and Dawn of Titans.
The strength of those titles, and Zynga’s extensive catalog of other games, combined to bring in Q4 revenue of $190.5 million. Those numbers not only beat the expectations of Wall Street analysts, but also represent a 31 percent improvement over last year.
At the core of Zynga’s success is a user base that simply can’t get enough of social titles and show up year in and year out to play them incessantly. During Q4 2016, Zynga’s daily active user (DAU) base hovered at a very respectable 18 million, while its average monthly users hit 63 million.
Gibeau took over the top spot at Zynga from the company’s founder, Mark Pinkus, one year ago and has been tasked with restoring the company to its place as one of the top social gaming producers.