King Digital Entertainment Plc struck gold with "Candy Crush Saga," the runaway hit that made its way onto hundreds of millions of smartphones and spawned a $1.5 billion franchise. Now, the rest of the smartphone game industry is waiting to see if King can pull off a coup in the public markets - and perhaps spur a mobile gaming IPO rush in the process.London-based King is seeking a valuation up to $7.6 billion when it lists on the New York Stock Exchange on March 26. The offering would mark the largest U.S. IPO from a booming mobile gaming industry that has been keen to emerge from the shadow of Zynga Inc, the social gaming firm that lost half its value after a 2011 IPO that valued it at $7 billion."The market is ready to move on from Zynga," said Kevin Chou, the chief executive of San Francisco-based social and mobile game company Kabam. "There's no great public companies (in gaming) for investors to invest in the West that have the large majority of their revenues coming from mobile."Others say King will struggle to shake off comparisons to one of the consumer dotcom industry's most oft-cited failures. Some investors warn of the danger of an industry where games like "Draw Something" can top the charts then decline steeply in the space of several months. Or where an indie app like "Flappy Bird" can attain overnight success, often without clear reason.
Zynga Inc. (Zynga) is the provider of social game services. Shares of ZNGA traded higher by 2.48% or $0.14/share to $5.79. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $2.50 and as high as $5.89. On average, 28889500 shares of ZNGA exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 35920952.
Source
