Tag Archives: znga

Fitbit gets investors’ hearts racing with first down day

Fitbit (FIT), the leading maker of wearable fitness trackers, on Wednesday suffered its first down day in trading since going public last week. San Francisco-based Fitbit saw its shares fall nearly 7% in early trading on the stock market today. In afternoon trading, Fitbit stock was down 6%, near 35.50. Fitbit went public on Thursday at 20 and reached an all-time high of 40.45 in intraday trading on Monday. It reached new closing highs in its first four days of trading. Global Equities Research analyst and Silicon Valley provocateur Trip Chowdhry reiterated his bearish views on Fitbit on Wednesday. He said Fitbit is another overhyped IPO destined to fall like Box (BOX), Alibaba (BABA), Groupon (GRPN), GoPro (GPRO) and Zynga (ZNGA). Chowdhry says Fitbit will face stiff competition from low-cost competitors as the category becomes a commodity. Fitbit’s devices are priced at $60 to $250. But Chinese…

Zynga ready to do battle in action-strategy mobile games

LOS ANGELES — Mobile game publisher Zynga (ZNGA) was late to action-strategy games but is now waging a full-on assault on the category with two new games. Best known for social games like “FarmVille” and “Words with Friends,” Zynga jumped into the action-strategy category with “Empires & Allies” last month. It joined a field dominated by “Clash of Clans” from Supercell and “Game of War: Fire Age” from Machine Zone. Up next for Zynga is “Dawn of Titans,” the first new game from NaturalMotion since it was acquired by Zynga in January 2014. NaturalMotion CEO Torsten Reil says “Dawn of Titans” has console-quality graphics on a smartphone or tablet. The freemium game features epic battles between massive armies with giant brawlers called Titans. The game is currently in “soft launch,” available in markets like Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam. It will be rolled out….

Zynga: Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

S hares of online social games maker Zynga (ZNGA) tumbled Thursday after the news that CEO Don Mattrick is leaving and Mark Pincus, Zynga’s founder, chairman and former CEO, is retaking control of the troubled firm. Zynga stock was down 14%, near 2.50, in midday trading on the stock market today. San Francisco-based Zynga announced the leadership change late Wednesday. Mattrick was recruited from Microsoft (MSFT) in July 2013 to help turn Zynga around, but analysts say his tenure was marred by missteps. They also expressed pessimism that Pincus will be very effective. “While we have been critical of Mattrick during his tenure, we are very skeptical that bringing back Pincus, who created the problems that Mattrick was brought in to fix, is the answer,” Cowen analyst Doug Creutz said in a research report Thursday. Mattrick’s ouster suggests a lack of confidence in games in the pipeline, including…