Zynga Poker shines as founder Pincus gives up voting control

Social gamers Zynga appears to have finally cracked the profit formula, thanks to a surge in mobile activity and continued strength in its flagship poker product.

Figures released Wednesday show Zynga’s revenue rising 7% year-on-year to $208.2m in the three months ending March 31, with game revenue of $162m and advertising revenue of $44.8m. Adjusted earnings rose nearly 10% to $26.6m and the company reported net income of $5.6m versus a $9.5m loss in Q1 2017.

For years, Zynga struggled to convert its desktop users to mobile channels, and the effort appears to have paid off. Mobile users accounted for a record high 88% of Q1’s overall revenue and mobile daily active users (DAU) hit 23m, another peak performance.

The news wasn’t all great. While average DAUs rose 4m to 25m and average monthly active users (MAU) improved by 22m to 94m, average daily bookings per average DAU slipped to 9.6¢ from 10.7¢ in Q1 2017. The conversion rate from players to payers was flat at 2.3%.