Why Zynga Stock Fell 35% Last Year

Shares of mobile-gaming company Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA) fell 35.2% in 2021, according to data provided by S&P Global Market Intelligence. This lost to the S&P 500's 27% return by a wide margin. For perspective, Zynga was a market-beating investment in 2020, up 61%.

But 2021's underperformance has caused Zynga stock to fall to levels not seen since May 2019. Because of this, its cumulative three-year returns are now losing to the market. Here's how we got here and why Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO) suddenly announced it's buying Zynga for $12.7 billion.

Zynga publishes games played on mobile devices. And for much of 2021, the stock performed well. The market loved it when the company reported full-year results for 2020 in February, showing that it set records for both revenue and bookings. And the records continued when first-quarter results were reported in May. For the first quarter, it generated revenue of $680 million and had bookings of $720 million, representing year-over-year growth of 68% and 69%, respectively.

Source Fool.com