Author: Dan Gendro

Zynga sets its sights on the growing mobile sector

Mobile and social game developer Zynga has announced that it has yet another new CEO. Frank Gibeau, former vice president of mobile games for Electronic Arts, has become the developer’s latest CEO. Mark Pincus, the founder and current CEO of Zynga, will remain as an executive chairman of the company after Gibeau takes the position. Appointing Gibeau as the new CEO highlight’s Zynga’s efforts to focus more heavily on the mobile space, which the company had moved away from in the past.

Mobile gaming continues to grow in power

Mobile gaming has become a very powerful force in the overall game industry. This fact has lead several companies, including prominent developers Nintendo and Konami, to focus more heavily on developing mobile games. Zynga has specialized in social games for some time, producing titles that can be played of Facebook. These games highlight interaction over social media networks, but this is not something that is foreign to mobile gaming. Consumers playing games on their mobile devices can easily interact with one another, making the mobile gaming space just as social as any other gaming sector.

Gibeau may lead Zynga to success

Zynga intends to provide consumers with an innovative experience when it comes to mobile gaming. Gibeau will lend his expertise in this regard, as he has more than 25 years of experience in the game industry. Gibeau has been involved in the mobile space for a significant amount of time and believes that interactive entertainment can be better, especially on mobile platforms. Zynga already has a strong consumer base to draw from, but the company has been heavily criticized for the decisions it had made in the past.

Mobile gaming may be a difficult market for Zynga

Zynga has managed to find success in the social gaming market with only a very small number of games. While the developer has produced many such games, only a few of them have managed to become universal successes. This may be mirrored in the mobile space, where consumers have proven themselves to be fickle when it comes to the type of mobile games they want to pay and, more importantly, pay for.

According to a recent report from BI Intelligence, the company’s wearables will stay at the top of the market.

The wearable technology market has been growing in a direction that had not been predicted by many industry analysts, especially when it comes to the impact that smartwatches were supposed to have, following the release of the Apple Watch.

Fitness trackers have remained well in the lead of wearables and it is Fitbit that has been keeping ahead of the pack.

Fitbit recently reported its Q4 2015 revenue as being $712 million. That figure was hugely greater than the average prediction from analysts, which had been $648 million. Throughout all of last year, the company brought in a massive revenue of $1.86 billion. To do this, it sold 8.2 million of its wearable technology devices in the last quarter, bringing its total number of sales for 2015 to 21.4 million. According to analysts, that figure will only continue to rise, this year as the company adds more products to its offerings, such as its very own smartwatch, the Fitbit Blaze, as well as a more fashion-focused fitness band, the Fitbit Alta.

Currently, Fitbit’s wearable technology products are most popular in the United States, where it generated 75 percent of its revenue.

That said, Europe, Africa and the Middle East, combined, made up 12 percent of the company’s revenue. Still, that represents a 191 percent year over year growth in Q4 for those regions, revealing a tremendous rise in popularity within those parts of the world. This indicates that 2016 may be seeing action in far greater markets than the United States. According to BI Intelligence research analyst, Jonathan Camhi, the company’s wearables are seeing considerable traction being gained outside the U.S.

Last year, the company’s focus was aimed at establishing and growing its Fitbit Wellness program. This allowed it to boost its healthcare market customer base by 1,000 in 2015. This shows the growing appeal of the wearable devices within that industry, as well.

Now, BI Intelligence has predicted that the most promising area for growth for these wearable technology devices will be within the health sector. As a number of trends form both among customers and professionals in the healthcare industry, the interest in these gadgets is expected to rise considerably.