Unity stock tanks 28% as outlook falls short of expectations

Unity stock tanks 28% as outlook falls short of expectations

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Unity’s stock price fell 28% in after-hours trading after the company reported earnings that met analyst expectations but fell short on the outlook.

Unity reported a loss of eight cents a share (adjusted) on sales of $320.1 million. Those numbers met expectations on the loss and fell slightly short on sales. But Unity said that second-quarter sales would be $290 million to $295 million, well below estimates for $360.97 million.

The company also lowered its full-year revenue guidance to $1.35 billion to $1.425 billion, down from its earlier estimate of $1.485 billion to $1.50 billion.

“Unity delivered record quarterly revenue in the first quarter of 2022, the highest in the company’s history, up 36% compared with the first quarter of 2021, with Create over-performing at 65% year-over-year growth, offset by slower growth in Operate,” said Unity CEO John Riccitiello, in a statement. “We remain focused on the massive opportunity we see in front of us long-term. Short-term, we are laser-focused on accelerating growth in Operate.”

Unity’s after-hours stock price has dropped 28% to $34.60 a share. Earlier, it was down as 38%.

John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity Technologies, has nearly 7 million developers for the Unity 3D engine.John Riccitiello, CEO of Unity Technologies.

“In the first quarter, we continued to add new customers across industries and expand our business with existing customers as we made strategic investments to support long-term value creation while improving margins,” said Luis Visoso, chief financial officer at Unity, in a statement. “We believe we are in the early stages of one of the largest transformations in tech: the move to real-time 3D. We will continue to invest to capture the opportunity while quickly driving to sustainable and growing profitability.”

Create Solutions revenue was $116.4 million, an increase of 65%; Operate Solutions revenue was $184.0 million, an increase of 26%; Strategic Partnerships and Other revenue was $19.7 million, an increase of 11%, each as compared to the first quarter of 2021.

Unity said that 1,083 customers each generated more than $100,000 of revenue in the trailing 12 months as of March 31, 2022, compared to 837 as of March 31, 2021.

Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash were $1.2 billion as of March 31, 2022, compared to $1.1 billion as of March 31, 2021.

In October of last year, Unity Gaming Services (UGS) was announced as a suite of tools and services built to simplify every developer’s ability to create, host, and manage their games. Unity has since launched nine products into open beta and more than 54,000 game developers signed up to test the service and UGS tools have been installed into over 6,000 unique game projects.

Unity has been hired by The Orlando Economic Partnership (The Orlando Partnership). The Orlando Partnership, a public-private, not-for-profit economic and community development organization representing hundreds of the region’s top private businesses, has hired Unity to create a digital twin of the entire region to be showcased on display at the Orlando Partnership’s new headquarters in downtown Orlando, Florida later this year.

The digital twin will help examine and is intended to potentially solve regional challenges for the 800-square mile area, including transportation, climate change, and utility mapping. The Orlando Partnership also plans to use the platform to show open land and office space to company leaders considering expanding or locating in the Orlando region.


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