Survey Says: Groupon, Zynga seen as most likely to fold in 2013

 

 

Last week, in the bright and sunny spirit of the new year, we decided to ask readers which tech companies were least likely to survive to see 2014. And readers answered back, resoundingly: Zynga and Groupon.

37.7 percent of our unscientific poll’s 318 respondents thought that Zynga was most likely to die this year, narrowly edging out Groupon, which received 37.1 percent of the vote. It was basically a statistical dead heat, however, as only two votes separated the troubled social games maker from the fallen daily deals site. Coming in a distant third, AMD captured 11.3 percent of the vote.

Certainly both Groupon and Zynga have had their problems on Wall Street this year. Groupon has lost 78 percent of its value, with its stock price falling from a high of $24.58 in February to start 2013 at $5.30. Zynga’s stock has gone from a high of $14.69 in March to $2.36 at the end of the year, an 83 percent drop. Both are low enough that they might be a possible takeover candidate for private equity firms.

Both companies are suffering from the same symptom: an inability to deliver the gangbusters growth that investors thought was baked into the cost of social stocks as the market has matured.