Roblox recently released its quarterly earnings report, which revealed that its revenue and daily user count are on the rise — beyond what the company had estimated for the period. Specifically, revenue was up 31% year-over-year, bookings rose by 22% and average daily active users (DAUs) grew by 21%. According to Roblox, this is part of its measures to “offset unseasonable growth rate declines” that began in the previous quarter.
Overall, Roblox reports $893.5 million in revenue and $955.2 million in bookings during the second quarter of 2024. They also report 79.5 million DAUs and 17.4 billion hours of engagement. The number of DAUs grew in regions such as Japan and India in particular — 56% and 57% respectively. The company also reported it was raising its full-year predictions in most categories, projecting revenue between $3.49-3.54 billion and $4.18-4.23 billion.
While these numbers were generally optimistic, the company’s stock fell over 5% on the day the report was released. According to analysts speaking with Marketwatch, some investors were expecting an even higher number of bookings. The company also announced that CFO Mike Guthrie is departing Roblox to “pursue his personal interest and focus on his next chapter,” though he’ll be staying through the succession process until the company finds a new CFO.
Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki said in a statement about the company’s earnings, “The dynamic Roblox content ecosystem is unique and our platform continues to attract users of all ages from across the globe. Going forward, we will continue to invest in our core platform to help our creator community build better and safer experiences and reach more people.”
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Roblox’s growing audience
GamesBeat spoke with Joe Ferencz, the CEO of GameFam, about Roblox’s results, and he noted that the attention of the younger audiences was one of the platform’s most important commodities. “These are the platforms that are the primary form of media consumption for Gen Z and Gen Alpha.” According to Roblox’s demographics breakdown, 32.4 million of its DAUs are under 13, and 46.4 million are over that age (79.5 million are unknown).
The ages of the users could be relevant to the company’s brand partnerships. Shortly before Roblox revealed its quarterly earnings report, Bloomberg published a story about alleged widespread predation on the platform and inadequate protection of its youthful playerbase. Roblox responded in a statement to Eurogamer that the story contained “glaring mischaracterizations about how we protect users of all ages on the platform.”
Baszucki said in Roblox’s earnings call that the company plans to expand its userbase across all demographics, as well as “expanding the use case of Roblox to include gaming, social communication, shopping, entertainment and learning and expanding the diversity and power of our economy.” He added that “[In Q2,] the total brand activations to date went north of 400, which is almost double the cumulative from a year ago.”
Roblox has also expanded its use cases for brands in the quarter. In June, the company announced that its e-commerce partnership with Walmart (which began testing in April) now allowed users to buy e.l.f. Cosmetics from within Roblox itself. The company said in its shareholders letter: “We are still in the early days, but remain on track and expect this business line to help advance the user experience, advertiser value and creator monetization on the platform.”
Ferencz added that this new popularity with brands looking for partnerships and marketing opportunities is not without its challenges. “Brands and IPs are realizing this is the next Instagram, the next YouTube, this is the next major media and social platform. So what’s challenging right now is brand partners don’t know what realistic goals are — or how to measure those goals. Roblox has their own advertising team educating partners, and GameFam is educating them from more of a developer and community owner perspective. Over the next 2, 3, 5 years we’re going to see a humongous influx of media dollars into the Roblox ecosystem. The dollars go where the eyeballs are, and the eyeballs are on Xbox.”
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