As we mentioned in our coverage of Zynga’s fourth quarter earnings, mobile has been one of the fast-growing parts of Zynga’s business. On the company’s earnings call, CEO and founder Marc Pincus revealed that mobile users have grown five-fold to 15 million daily active users in 2011. That’s up from 13 million in December.
That’s an addition of 2 million users in the past month, and an addition of over 5 million users over the course of the quarter. In the third quarter, Zynga had 9.9 million daily active users for its mobile games.
The company launched five mobile games in the fourth quarter, including Mafia Wars and ForestVille. The company’s mobile game titles Dream Zoo, Words with Friends and Zynga Poker were all among the top 10 grossing games on the iOS platform during the quarter (Zynga launched 8 mobile games over the course of the entire year). On average, Zynga’s mobile apps have an average of 4.3 stars in App Store, says the company. Zynga says that the company saw a record amount of mobile bookings (revenue) in the quarter as well and mobile payers (those who are paying during games) are growing.
Zynga CFO Dave Wehner says that while the company is gaining more revenue from advertising online, there has also been healthy growth in ad revenue from mobile as well. In terms of monetization, some mobile games are being monetized at a higher rate than even web games. “As devices become more powerful, this is yet another canvas to grow,” said COO John Schappert on the call. “We’re seeing mobile as a big opportunity…we’re going to see more games coming.”
Considering the growth Zynga is seeing from mobile, it’s a good bet that mobile will be a key focus for Zynga in 2012.