Roblox shares shot up 30% after-hours: here’s the catalyst

Shares of Roblox Corp (NYSE: RBLX) shot up 30% in after-hours trading on Monday after the video game company reported strong results for its fiscal third quarter on continued demand amidst easing pandemic restrictions.

Q3 financial performance

Roblox said it lost $74 million in Q3 that translates to 13 cents per share. In the comparable quarter of last year, it had posted $48.6 million in net loss or 26 cents per share.

The U.S. firm generated $509.3 million in revenue that more than doubled from last year as bookings jumped 28% on a year-over-year basis to $637.8 million. According to FactSet, experts had forecast 14 cents of per-share loss on $618.8 million in bookings.

RBLX hit a high of $101.50 in extended trading that marks the first time the stock has topped $100.

Other notable figures

Roblox had 47.3 million average daily active users (DAUs) in the recent quarter – an annualised growth of 31%. Hours engaged were up 28% from last year, and average bookings per DAU printed at $13.49.

The quarterly results come shortly after Roblox faced a three-day outage, for which the company said it’ll compensate creators that relied on income from the platform. In the earnings press release, CEO David Baszucki said:

We are happy to report that the developer community earned over $130 million in the quarter and is on pace to earn well over $500 million this year. As we finish 2021 and head into 2022, we will continue to invest in innovative technology to enable our developer community to do what they do best – build and create.