Yesterday Zynga reported an unexpected fourth-quarter profit by making steep cost cuts and shifting forward deferred revenue. Investors breathed a sigh of relief and the shares in the outfit rose by seven percent to $2.93 in after-hours trade. The company reported fourth-quarter revenue of $311 million, which is unchanged from a year earlier and down from the prior quarter. There also little to report that is positive. The company is still projecting revenue could shrink for a third sequential quarter.
Zynga forecast revenue for the first quarter of 2013 of between $255 million and $265 million, a roughly 20 per cent drop from the same quarter in 2012. But the company also said its weak sales forecast was due to a "light slate" of new games planned for quarter. The company went public in late 2011 at $10 a share. By the end of last year it had fallen to $2.10.