Zynga right this moment beat analyst expectations for its third-quarter earnings, bringing in about $176 million in bookings with flat earnings, and income of $196 million. Analysts have been anticipating a lack of 1 cent per share for the corporate’s earnings.

It’s an fascinating time for Zynga’s earnings report. Activision Blizzard simply yesterday stated it might purchase King Digital, the corporate behind Sweet Crush Saga, for $5.9 billion. Zynga’s been in a troublesome place because it transitions to cellular, transferring from a time when it was extremely sturdy on desktop to discovering itself beneath strain from cellular video games like Sweet Crush Saga. Zynga’s technique is to go deep on a number of classes — reminiscent of on line casino and Phrases With Pals, amongst others, CEO Mark Pincus stated in an interview.

“It’s alongside this trendline I talked about at first that corporations over time differentiating themselves by having a big numerous participant community, being multi-category on their recreation improvement, and proudly owning and growing main cellular franchises,” Pincus stated. “I additionally assume there’s another classes in cellular that now we have deeper investments in and we’ve constructed sturdy positions in, like social on line casino — we’re quantity two in slots — and motion technique with Empires & Allies, which we’re simply getting again into. And we’ve made an enormous dedication with buying Pure Movement. We intend to be a significant longterm participant and supplier in action-strategy.”

Shares of Zynga have been about flat after rising as a lot as three % in prolonged buying and selling on the earnings report, after rising 2.5 % in common buying and selling. On the yr, Zynga shares are down by about 7 %. Zynga’s income was up 11 % from the third quarter final yr, when it reported $176.6 million in income. It reported a internet revenue of $three million, which is properly up from the online loss it reported within the third quarter final yr of $57.1 million.

The wrongdoer of the share’s motion is probably going a mixture of some issues: a giant share repurchase program, posting a internet revenue and beating earnings expectations, however nonetheless seeing its consumer numbers proceed to fall.

The corporate approved a $200 million share repurchase program, one thing that may certainly please traders given the money that the corporate has on its steadiness sheet. It had round $1.1 billion in money, money equivalents and marketable securities. As a part of the earnings announcement, the corporate additionally stated its chief monetary officer David Lee would additionally step down.

“We really feel like we’re very properly capitalized and financed, and we simply take a look at our place available in the market right this moment and the place we predict our prospects are over the following three to 5 years, with the board we thought that it was a great time limit to vary our cap desk somewhat bit with the inventory buyback,” Pincus stated.

Particularly, the corporate pointed to the power of its slots and Poker video games, in addition to Phrases With Pals. Cell bookings now account for 69 % of the corporate’s whole bookings, up from 66 % within the second quarter this yr. Pincus stated that, whereas the corporate had initially missed out on the slots class, it has rapidly introduced itself again with prime quality Slots video games to be second within the class. Regardless of an viewers decline, bookings for Phrases With Pals nice 34 % year-over-year, the corporate stated.

“Social on line casino actually is our unique legacy, and the unique legacy of social gaming,” CEO Mark Pincus stated in an interview. “Our poker recreation was the primary main social recreation, and we actually missed the chance when it expanded to slots, and slots was actually terrific for social gaming as a result of it matched up so properly with an grownup feminine viewers that social gaming is admittedly interesting to for the primary time. Slots is known as a nice class for us, we missed it not from lack of effort — we had just a few slots efforts and so they failed, so we have been attempting — and we discovered the onerous approach that you actually need to go deep on high quality for that class and that viewers.”

The corporate’s Month-to-month Lively Customers continued to fall, to 75 million within the third quarter this yr — which is down from 103 million within the third quarter final yr — although the common reserving per consumer rose in that very same interval. Zynga made round 10 cents per month-to-month lively consumer, up from 7.9 cents per lively consumer within the third quarter final yr and round 9 cents within the second quarter this yr.

As a part of the earnings report, the corporate additionally stated it was delaying two of its titles — CSR Racing 2 and Daybreak of Titans. The reasoning behind that, Pincus stated, was that whereas the video games had soft-launched they weren’t fairly prepared for mass-market. The video games have been delayed until 2016, the corporate stated.

The elephant within the room, in fact, is now Activision Blizzard. However King has discovered itself having problem increasing past the large hit of Sweet Crush Saga. Even whereas it continues to provide new video games, the corporate has seen its income and earnings efficiency considerably lag, with shares largely flat earlier than the acquisition was introduced. It’s a place Zynga is accustomed to, and hopes to keep away from sooner or later.

“You’ll over time see these corporations which have made these commitments, and also you’ll see corporations that didn’t,” Pincus stated. “The businesses that didn’t, which have a tremendous franchise in a single class, it’s not apparent they’ll have the identical launch and development prospects.”