Roblox Bookings Weaken as Gaming Frenzy Dwindles

Roblox Corporation on Tuesday delivered lower quarterly bookings as the pandemic-driven demand for the gaming platform declined.

The online game developer reported bookings of $770.12 million in the fourth quarter.

The figure missed the average market estimate of $772.00 million and the previous $1.90 billion record.

Accordingly, bookings refer to Roblox’s virtual currency, “Robux.” Players used the money to upgrade avatars by purchasing in-game items such as clothing, pets, collectibles, etc.

Notably, the business receives a 30.00% cut from the bookings generated by the sales of Robux.

The increased outdoor activities due to the lifting of health restrictions and the reopening of schools have affected user spending.

Still, Roblox is among the world’s most popular gaming sites for children, which had its market debut last year.

Similarly, the firm announced a loss of $0.25 per share, higher than the anticipated figure of $0.13.

Roblox’s quarterly revenue increased 83.00% year-over-year to $568.80 million.

Its Q4 average daily active users (DAU) improved 33.00% to 49.50 million, beyond the 47.30 million in the third quarter.

In line with this, the average bookings per user were $15.57.

Additionally, gamers spent 10.80 billion hours on the platform, a 28.00% gain in 2020.

Roblox reported average daily active users of 45.50 million for the full year, with 41.40 billion hours of engagement.

Roblox was the first major company working on the metaverse to go public. It has already signed deals with several big brands in the previous months, including the NFL and Nike.

Roblox Delivers January Results

Meanwhile, the firm did not provide an outlook for the current quarter. Nevertheless, it disclosed the actual results for January.

Roblox revealed that revenue was in the range of $203.00 million and $206.00 million.

The result reflected a gain of 64.00% to 66.00% year over year. Then, DAUs came at 54.70 million, 32.00% higher from the same period of 2021.

Moreover, bookings posted between $220.00 million and $223.00 million. This data mirrored a slight increase of 2.00% to 3.00% from a year earlier.

Following the report, the company stock price sharply plummeted 15.28% to $62.10 per share on Tuesday’s extended trading.

This slump sent the game developer to a loss of $6.48 billion to its market capitalization.

Since the start of the year, the company has traded 25.82% or 25.51 points lower.