What happened
Shares of mobile games platform Skillz (SKLZ 3.29%) are down 6.4% as of 11:30 a.m. EDT today, after the company missed earnings badly in its quarterly report released after market close yesterday.
Its second-quarter 2021 earnings weren't expected to be fantastic; analysts were looking for a $0.10-per-share loss. But the scale of the company's actual loss seems to have dismayed investors. Instead of $0.10 per share, Skillz lost more than twice that -- $0.21 per share.
Image source: Getty Images.
So what
On the plus side, Skillz reported $89.5 million in sales for the quarter, more than the $88.2 million analysts had predicted and more than a 50% improvement over last year's Q2. The company, which went public in 2020 via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), also maintained last year's impressive 95% gross profit margin.
Unfortunately, Skillz's costs rose even faster than its revenue -- up a coincidental 95%. With costs growing nearly twice as fast as sales, the company ended up not shrinking but tripling its quarterly generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) loss per share, to $0.21.
Now what
The news isn't all bad. Skillz also updated its revenue guidance for the year to include sales from its recent acquisition of marketing platform Aarki. Incorporating that revenue stream, Skillz says it now expects to do $389 million in business this year -- ahead of Wall Street's predicted $376 million.
Whether the company can turn even this larger revenue haul into a profit this year, however, will depend entirely upon whether it can get its costs under control.
