• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, July 5, 2011

One thing that's clear from Zynga's $1 billion IPO filing last week is that mobile is a big part of its plans for the future. Without specifying numbers, the company said the number of daily active users -- one of its key metrics- -- on mobile devices increased 10-fold from November 2010 to June 2011. (Overall, Zynga said it had 238 million daily users in 166 countries, driven by the popularity of hit social games like "FarmVille," "CityVille" and "Mafia Wars.")

"Words with Friends" ranks as one of the top social games for mobile devices, but may just be the start of more to come, according to Zynga's IPO filing. "We believe there is a large opportunity to extend our brand and games to mobile platforms such as Apple iOS and Google Android," it states. "We will continue to make our games accessible on a large number of mobile and other Internet-connected devices and invest in developing and acquiring mobile development talent, technologies and content."

Zynga signaled its growing focus on mobile last fall when it hired David Ko, who had been SVP of Yahoo's audience, mobile and local business group, as its head of mobile operations. In December, the company acquired Newtoy, the developer behind "Words with Friends." It also created app versions of its top online like titles like "FarmVille" for the iPhone and Android devices.

Zynga's expansion to mobile also dovetails with the surge of activity around mobile payments, providing potentially new options for people to purchase the virtual items it sells for in-game play on mobile devices. At the same time, Zynga plans to expand its ad business as a means of monetizing games, through offerings like branded virtual goods and sponsorships. Presumably, those efforts will extend to mobile as well.

And given the company's symbiotic relationship with Facebook, Zynga is poised to ride the social network's parallel mobile growth. Facebook has more than 250 million active mobile users and its rumored "Project Spartan" would create an HTML5-based platform to run on the iPhone and iPad and compete with iOS. For now, though, Zynga has to prove it can be as successful in mobile without the rocket booster Facebook provided in powering the startup's rapid growth on the PC-based Web.

Another way Zynga underscored the importance of mobile to its future is in the negative. As in, "our growth prospects will suffer if we are unable to develop successful games for mobile platforms." And, let's face it, the only mobile-specific hit game it has came through the acquisition of Newtoy. That doesn't mean Zynga can't make similar future acquisitions, especially with a huge payday from its IPO. But it would be nice if the company could come up with a homegrown answer to "Angry Birds.'