When it comes to analyzing Zynga's full-bodied earnings announcement from Thursday, it may be easiest to take a bird's eye view.
The San Francisco, Calif.-based gaming company announced extensive layoffs, a half-billion dollar acquisition and better-than-expected earnings — a feat that Zynga COO Clive Downie described as the company "turning a corner."
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"I think it is Zynga turning a corner," he said. "It proved that we have a vision for the company going forward that's backed by strategy from a content standpoint, it's backed by strategy for driving efficiency, and it's backed by strategy in terms of how we look to accelerate it with the acquisition."
A big portion of that strategy appears to be mobile focused, supported by the acquisition of NaturalVision, a mobile game developer that Zynga acquired for $527 million. Downie says that Zynga expects more than 60% of its revenue to come from mobile in the next year, and 75% of the company's new product pipeline is "mobile-first."
NaturalVision should help with this mobile push. The acquisition of NaturalVision's games Clumsy Ninja and racing games like CSR Classics will help Zynga expand into new gaming categories as well, says Downie. Right now, Zynga's three big areas of focus have been on farming, word, and casino games, and the acquisitions will move them into the racing and people categories as well.
One major mobile commitment from Zynga: the company is bringing the FarmVille franchise to mobile for the first time in Q2, a franchise with more than 400 million users on Facebook.
"We're really poised for a year of growth in 2014," he says, "and not just a year of growth, but delivering a landmark year for mobile and Zynga's presence in mobile at the same time."
The obvious black eye from Thursday was the announcement that Zynga will cut more than 300 jobs, roughly 15% of the company's workforce. Last June, Zynga cut more than 500 jobs and closed three offices. Downie says that the decision to trim down is never easy, but that ultimately, the layoffs are necessary to achieve the company's vision.
"We simply have to understand and make decisions around what we believe is the right size of the organization and the right shape of the organization to empower the growth aspirations we have for 2014 and 2015," he says. "Don [Mattrick, CEO] and I stand behind that. It was the right move for the company."
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