Roblox, the popular online multiplayer game, has published its quarterly earnings, which showed mixed results. Despite reporting a net loss of $268.3 million, the company’s daily active users count reached a new record sum, resulting in an increase in its stock price.
Roblox’s first-quarter performance
Here are the three key highlights from Roblox’s first-quarter performance:
- Strong Year-over-Year Growth Roblox reported a 22% year-over-year increase in revenue and daily active users count for Q1 2023, with $655.3 million in quarterly revenue and 66.1 million daily users. Additionally, the company saw a 23% increase in total hours spent in the game and “bookings,” which are purchases of the in-game virtual currency Robux.
- Mission to Enable Creators Roblox CEO David Baszucki emphasized the company’s mission to be a “technology platform” that enables creators. He attributed the business’s momentum to the creator community’s success, which has attracted an ever-growing global user base that spans all ages.
- Proto-Metaverse with Room for Improvement Despite being considered a “proto-metaverse” by some, Roblox remains a closed “Web2” ecosystem, and its digital items and virtual currency cannot be carried onto other video game platforms. Many Web3 builders advocate creating an “open metaverse” that will allow players to truly own their items as NFTs. Recently, Roblox has experimented with scarce digital items that act like blockchain-based NFTs. Still, they remain locked to the Roblox platform.
Roblox’s Chief Financial Officer Michael Guthrie characterized the company’s Q1 performance as “strong.” Roblox’s growth continues to defy the waning mainstream interest in the metaverse over the past year, as the company still hires engineers and staff while other tech firms conducted mass layoffs.
