Zynga (ZNGA, $10.50) shares got a buy rating from analyst at BMO

On Monday, Zynga   shares got a buy rating from analyst at BMO who initiated coverage of the shares. The  game maker got a $15 share-price target from BMO.

Analyst Gerrick Johnson called Zynga the “leading player in the mobile games market”.  Johnson also noted that the mobile games market is the fastest growing segment in the rapidly growing video games industry.

Johnson mentioned that Zynga, which specializes in free-to-play social games, uses live services bolstered by solid data analytics to boost in-game monetization and returns from advertising. "We think ZNGA has a competitive advantage in creating deeper relationships with its players over other mobile competitors," the analyst said.

According to Johnson, acquisition has been a key strategy for Zynga, and he estimates that the company holds around 2.5% market share of the “highly fragmented mobile games market". Johnson mentioned that Zynga has pursued  aggressive acquisition of companies with attractive properties wherein “it layers higher margin live services or advertising supported by its superior data analytics."

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Sergey Savastiouk|Expert

Sergey Savastiouk, Ph.D. has a degree in Applied Mathematics from Moscow University and has extensive experience as an entrepreneur, investor, manager, and mathematician. His professional expertise is in applied mathematics, mathematical modeling, system and pattern analysis, and software and hardware system integration. He has served as the CEO of several hi-tech start-up companies and nonprofit organizations, which has given him proven capabilities in business strategy for high-tech start-up companies, market assessment, company formation, team building, product development, marketing, and sales. He has published numerous articles in journals and magazines on related fields. As a retail investor, he spent 15 years developing his proprietary trading and quantitative algorithms (now Tickeron’s A.I.), which brought him significant returns in trading the stock market. His current work and goal in founding Tickeron is to bring professional, sophisticated stock market analysis capabilities to retail investors via an easy-to-use interface.