Roblox's Army of Young Game Creators Doubles Revenue

Roblox Corporation RBLX soared as it reported that its third-quarter revenue, excluding deferred revenue, doubled. The results impressed analysts so much that the increase lifted Roblox's stock price more than 60% from its public debut in March as shares of the video game company soared as much as 35% in extended trading.

Moreover, even before Monday's impressive earnings, shares were up more than 30% the company went public via a direct listing.

Third Quarter Revenue

During the quarter, Roblox made a loss of 13 cents per share as net loss widened from $48.6 million in the year-ago quarter to $74 million.

Bookings, which are defined by revenue in addition to any changes in deferred revenue and non-cash adjustments, rose 28% to $637.8 million, exceeding the $636.5 million in adjusted revenue that Refinitiv analysts expected.

Excluding deferred revenue, revenue amounted to $509.3 million, up 102% YoY, which is less than the previous quarter's revenue growth of 127%. Revenue from games with online components, such as spending on virtual weapons, is deferred for however long companies believe players will use those items, which is usually six to nine months.

Brand Collaborations

During the quarter, two new brand experiences were launched on its platform by sneaker company Van Doren Rubber Co., known as Vans, and Netflix Inc NFLX. According to CEO, Mr. Baszucki, Roblox is enjoying great demand from other brands who are interested in creating their own experiences in the Roblox universe.

User Profile

Roblox operates a free online platform with millions of games and other entertainment experiences made by its own users who are young game creators. Since being founded 15 years ago, Robox has been best known for providing entertainment to children.

The third quarter gathered 47.3 million average daily active users which is a 31% YoY increase, also up from the second quarter's 43.2 million. Of the top 1,000 experiences people played in Roblox in the third quarter, 28% of them had most users who were at least 13 years old, up from 10% in last year's comparable quarter.

A Q4 Disruption

The online entertainment company suffered a significant outage for Halloween that lasted a bit less than three days. The game was unavailable between October 28^th and October 31^st and the incident resulted in a slight decline in actual daily active users, as well as $25 million in lost bookings, along with $6.8 million in payouts to compensate developers for their losses.

Average daily users in October dropped slightly to 47.1 million compared to the above third-quarter figure. However, its October performance will still top last year's, despite the Halloween outage as the company expects monthly bookings of $189 million to $192 million, topping last year's $165.1 million.

A detailed public report on the cause of the blackout and steps the company is taking to avoid such incidents in the future will be released soon.

Outlook

Roblox doesn't issue quarterly guidance, but the latest figures show that even as pre-pandemic behaviors kick in, Roblox is still an important part of the day of its users. Since it appeals mainly to teens and preteens, analysts were expecting a drop in usage due to these users going back to school which is a more important factor than vaccines for this age group. Fortunately for Roblox, its gaming community proved them wrong.  The company is actively working also on attracting older users as well as retaining existing ones.

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