Roblox
According to the company's earnings release, Roblox lost 27 cents per share, compared to the 21-cent loss expected by experts. Revenue came to $631.2 million, falling short of the $645 million predicted by Wall Street. Bookings, which represent purchases of the Robux in-game currency, declined by 3% in the quarter.
However, the news wasn't all bad, as the platform saw a 22% increase in hours engaged by users. Average daily users rose 28% year over year. While these numbers are far from the staggering spikes seen amid pandemic lockdowns, Roblox's consistently stable userbase and sustained popularity (even amid a return to work and school) seemed to soften the shocks that have plagued other tech-sector companies as of late.
This is also the second quarter that Roblox suffered a plunge following missed estimates, with the company shedding just over a quarter of its share price after a weaker than expected fourth quarter. Roblox suffered a more drastic drop in February after announcing its Q4 results for 2021. Even then, the company's results weren't necessarily bad and showed solid growth in daily users and hours spent online.
Contributing to the company's performance is the continual improvement of its platform. In its shareholder letter, Roblox listed many new features released to users over the last quarter and mentioned ongoing betas of upcoming features in the process of reaching release.
"We believe the future size of the human co-experience / metaverse category is profoundly large but will only be realized through an unrelenting focus on invention and innovation," Roblox said.
Roblox shares slid 5.78% on Tuesday following the company's announcement. The developer's stock price seems to be picking up somewhat towards the end of the week, recovering 3.4% on Wednesday, followed by a 17.6% recovery by noon on Thursday.
