Zynga beats estimates with $183M in revenues — but it’s cutting 364 jobs

Zynga may have recently dropped former chief executive officer Don Mattrick, but it’s not because it was having a bad quarter.

The casual game publisher reported revenues of $183.3 million during the first quarter of the year. That beat Wall Street estimates of $150 million by a wide margin. The FarmVille company also reported an earnings loss of 1 cent per share as opposed to an expected loss of 2 cents. This beat comes at a good time for Zynga, which has struggled continuously for the last several years to transition from Facebook to mobile games. But despite the good news, Zynga announced that it is going to layoff 18 percent of its workforce, which is around 364 people.

These job cuts are part of a cost-reduction plan to save around $100 million. The job cuts will affect studios, and the company plans to also spend less on outside services and tools.

“For our people, we need to create an empowered, entrepreneurial culture that fosters more creativity and innovation,” Zynga chief executive officer Mark Pincus said in a statement about the job cuts. “Over the years, we’ve seen that tighter, more nimble teams can drive faster innovation and deliver more player value. As a result, today we announced a cost-reduction program to focus, simplify, and align us against our most promising opportunities.”

These cuts come about a month after Mattrick stepped down as CEO after nearly two years at the company. Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter speculated in April that Pincus — who founded the company — had grown impatient. Pincus retook the role of CEO after Mattrick left.

But despite the uncertain leadership and the job cuts, Zynga does look like it is finally making some progress toward its goals.

“Our Q1 results reflect the progress we have made in our transition to mobile which now represents 63 percent of total bookings, which is up 84 percent year over year,” said Pincus.