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Zynga's (ZNGA) Rollic Buyout Boosts Mobile Games Portfolio

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Zynga is having a terrific year driven by its robust mobile-games portfolio. The company is benefiting from growth in mobile-live services, supported by its five forever franchises, namely CSR Racing, Words With Friends, Zynga Poker, Empires & Puzzles and Merge Dragons!.

Moreover, the company has been focusing on expanding its mobile-games portfolio through acquisitions. Zynga recently completed the acquisition of 80% of Istanbul-based Rollic for roughly $180 million. Further, over the next three years, this Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) company will acquire the remaining 20% in equal installments at valuations based on specific top-line and profitability goals. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank(Strong Buy) stocks here.

Notably, Rollic is a well-known developer and publisher of hyper-casual games that have been downloaded more than 250 million times. The buyout will now help Zynga to enter the fast-growing hyper-casual game space. The demand for this kind of games has significantly risen due to the coronavirus-led lockdowns and shelter-in-place guidelines that forced people to stay home.

Moreover, in August, Zynga completed the buyout of Peak for roughly $1.85 billion. The deal adds hit franchises like Toon Blast and Toy Blast to the company’s mobile-games portfolio.

Markedly, shares of Zynga have returned 52.3% year to date against the Zacks Gaming Industry’s decline of 20.5%. It has also outperformed video game giants Electronic Arts (EA - Free Report) , Activision Blizzard and Take Two Interactive (TTWO - Free Report) .

Year-to-Date Performance

Robust Portfolio to Boost Top Line

Games like Merge Magic!, Farm Ville 3, Game of Thrones Slots Casino and Word Pop are expected to boost Zynga’ top-line growth. Moreover, the recent launch of Harry Potter: Puzzles & Spells is in line with Zynga’s focus on enriching its portfolio through game launches, partnerships and acquisitions.

Markedly, Zynga’s average mobile daily active users (DAUs) increased 4% year over year to 22 million in second-quarter 2020.

Further, Zynga’s partnerships with Snapchat-parent Snap, as well as NASCAR, are noteworthy developments. The company is developing exclusive multiplayer games for Snap’s gaming platform.

Meanwhile, the agreement with NASCAR will help it feature the iconic NASCAR Cup Series Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 1LE race car as an unlockable car in CSR2 American Road Trip Series.

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