Weak Zynga stats spark market saturation fears

Zynga is failing to grow past the daily active user records the company had set in October 2009, according to analysis from Cowen & Company.

The social games group has current average levels of around 47 million daily users – roughly the same figure it reached two years ago – despite a recent almighty push with five new game launches in half a year.

"While daily users have ticked up slightly over the last month, given the launch of Zynga’s most important new title for the year, CastleVille, the modest increase in November has to be a disappointment," said analyst Doug Creutz.

He said gains made to new games were balanced by a “general overall erosion” in the popularity of its older games.

"We think the evidence is very strong that Zynga’s new title releases are simply attracting new users from previous Zynga games, and that few new users are entering the Zynga ecosystem,” Creutz said.

Yesterday it was claimed that the new Zynga title, Mafia Wars 2, had lost 900,000 users since October.

Zynga has fought for Wall Street’s continued interest during a luckless and protracted IPO, which began in the summer and has dragged on due to wider market issues.