King Digital Entertainment, maker of ‘Candy Crush Saga’, reduced its outlook for 2014 after reporting worse-than-expected results, prompting its share price to fall to the lowest level since its IPO in March.

The company reported revenue of $593.6 million for the second quarter, up 30 per cent from the $455.5 million of a year ago. However, it was down 2 per cent compared with the first quarter.

This was short of analyst expectations of $608.3 million, according to Thomson Reuters.

Gross bookings (the total spent on games and virtual items) for the second quarter was $611 million, up 27 per cent year-on year but down 5 per cent on the prior quarter. King said 75 per cent of gross bookings were derived from its mobile users.

The company said the quarterly drop in revenue and gross bookings were “primarily due to lower gross bookings from Candy Crush Saga, which were only partially offset by increased gross bookings and revenue from Farm Heroes Saga and Bubble Witch 2 Saga”.

Gross bookings for the year are now estimated at between $2.25 billion and $2.35 billion, compared with the previous forecast of $2.55 billion to $2.65 billion.

“While our second quarter gross bookings came in below our expectations leading us to reduce our outlook for full-year 2014 growth rates, from a profitability perspective, the business continued to perform well,” Riccardo Zacconi, King CEO, said in a statement.

The company’s net profit was $165.4 million, up 31 per cent from the same period in 2013, and a similar improvement compared to the first quarter.

Investors appeared unconvinced by the company’s results: at the time of writing, King shares were trading on the New York Stock Exchange at $13.95, down 23 per cent from its previous close of $18.20. The share price briefly fell to $13.65, the lowest price since they were first traded in March.

The company’s performance since its IPO has been lacklustre, as investors appear unconvinced about the company’s ability to produce another global hit.

Hope Cochran, King CFO, told Reuters that a sister title to Candy Crush Saga is due in the fourth quarter, “which will give more longevity to that title”.

In terms of its audience, King had 485 million monthly active users in the second quarter, up from 265 million a year earlier and a slight improvement on the 481 million for Q1.

It had 10.4 million monthly unique payers, up 1 per cent on the same period in 2013 but down 12 per cent on Q1 2014.

The company said the sequential decline in monthly unique payers was “primarily a result of reduced payment activity among the occasional payers on the network, in addition to an increased share of our transactions coming from games offering virtual currency”.

Alongside its results, King announced the acquisition of Singapore-based mobile game studio Nonstop Games for $6 million in cash, and a further $84 million over a four year period if certain revenue targets are reached.

“Through this acquisition, the company will be adding new games outside of its traditional casual genre,” Zacconi said, adding that the studio will remain in Singapore where it will work on games expected to launch in 2015.