Zynga shares slide to all-time low

Zynga’s shares hit an all-time low after an analyst at Pacific Crest Securities lowered his estimates for the company, citing a steep decline in the social game company’s traffic.

The San Francisco firm’s shares traded at $4.88 early Thursday, down 7 cents or 1.4%. The price dipped below the previous nadir on June 12, when Zynga closed at $4.98.

It’s also less than half of Zynga’s initial public offering price of $10 when the company debuted on the Nasdaq exchange in December.

“We saw a faster-than-expected decline in ‘Draw Something’ and some of Zynga’s older titles, especially ‘CityVille,’” in the second quarter, Pacific Crest’s game industry analyst Evan Wilson wrote in a note to investors Thursday. As a result, Wilson lowered his forecast to 70 million daily active users of Zynga’s games, down from 74.3 million, for the second quarter.

Zynga acquired OMGPOP, the maker of “Draw Something,” in March for an estimated $200 million. Since then, however, the game has lost momentum. Wilson said he expected the title to average 11.2 million daily players in the second quarter, but the game averaged only 8.9 million. At the end of June, “Draw Something” had just 4.5 million daily players.

Wilson also lowered his estimates for company’s second-quarter revenue bookings to $335 million from $345 million. Analysts on average had expected Zynga to post $346 million in bookings, according to Thomson Financial.

“We do not see what will turn the company around,” he said. “We are seeing growing risk to [the second half of 2012] as well” with few blockbuster titles in the pipeline to pick up the slack.

Zynga did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The company is scheduled to report its second quarter financials on July 25.

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