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Sat May 26 15:21:09 SAST 2012

Worker stock compensation sucks profit out of Zynga

Sapa-AFP | 15 February, 2012 11:32
Publicity photo from Zynga on the day of their IPO in San Francisco
The word "Zynga" is shown scrawled in glass next to the bell button (L) rung by Zynga CEO Mark Pincus remotely from the company's headquarters
Image by: HANDOUT / REUTERS

Facebook game star Zynga on Tuesday saw its stock market price sink after its first earnings report as a public company showed employee stock compensation turned profit into loss by the end of 2011.

The San Francisco firm’s revenue last year nearly doubled to $1.14 billion but the profit on the books at the end of the third quarter was wiped out by a $435 million loss posted in the final three months of the year.

Zynga ended the year with a net loss of $404.3 million, which included more than half-billion dollars in stock compensation workers earned instead of cash at the startup.

Zynga stock price dropped more than 5% to $13.53 a share in after-hours trading that followed release of the earnings figures.

Zynga jumped into the stock market with a billion-dollar listing in December.

Offering 100 million shares — one-seventh of the company’s total — at $10 a pop, the maker of Facebook games FarmVille, Zynga Poker and Words With Friends was valued at a whopping $7 billion.

Zynga’s entrance was the largest Internet IPO offering since Google went public in 2004, surpassing online bargain service Groupon, which raised $700 million when it went public last year.

Despite concerns by some analysts that new Internet stars are being precariously overvalued, Zynga’s stock was snapped up quickly.

Zynga games are free to play but the company makes money by selling virtual in-game goods to players and serving up advertising.

The games developer boasts around 240 million players per month in 175 countries, dwarfing its social gaming competitors.

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