RBLX Q4 2022 Earnings

Call Details

• Call Title: Roblox Corporation Q4 2022 Earnings Call
• Date: February 15, 2023 at 1:30 PM UTC
• Management Team:
  • Stefanie Notaney (Head of Investor Relations)
  • David Baszucki (Chief Executive Officer)
  • Mike Guthrie (Chief Financial Officer)

Call Summary

Financial Performance

• Q4 bookings were $899M, up 17% year over year and up 21% on a constant currency basis.
• On an adjusted (non-GAAP) basis, Q4 EBITDA was $183M, which represented 20.3% of bookings.
• The company reported running effectively cash flow neutral for 2022 and described net cash change in 2022 as roughly negative 0.5% cash.
• Q4 reached an all-time high of 13.4M payers and the company reported that monetization per payer in Q4 was up significantly versus prior periods.
• January usage reached a record 65M DAU, which the company described as its highest ever DAU level.
• Regional Q4 DAU growth rates reported were Europe up 24%, APAC up 21%, and U.S. & Canada up 19%.
• Bookings showed acceleration into December at 20% year on year and January at 21% year on year, with Europe and APAC up 29% year on year in January.
• For the 17-24 age cohort, January bookings grew 39% year on year according to the commentary on demographic performance.

Guidance

• The company did not provide new formal numeric guidance for 2023 revenue or EBITDA on the call.
• CFO reiterated a continued investment posture for 2023 and declined to give specific expense growth rates for R&D and infrastructure.
• CFO previously had commented that EBITDA margins would be below 10% in 2023; the call did not supply a numeric update to that prior commentary.
• The company signaled it will be conservative on near-term contribution from advertising and characterized advertising forecasts for the year as conservative.
• Capital expenditures related to infrastructure were guided to be down between 25% and 30% in 2023 relative to 2022.
• Management asked listeners to focus on year-over-year metrics to neutralize seasonality and noted that COVID-related comps are largely behind the company.