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Unity Beat Its Q2 2024 Guidance, but Cut Its Full-Year Outlook

Unity topped its Q2 revenue and Adjusted EBITDA guidance ranges, but total-company revenue declined year over year and management lowered its 2024 outlook amid a cautious Grow recovery view.
From TheFinanceBase Team3 min to read
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Unity exceeded its own Q2 2024 guidance for strategic-portfolio revenue and Adjusted EBITDA, but total-company revenue fell year over year and management lowered its full-year forecast. The quarter also came amid CEO, CFO and advertising leadership changes; the company’s disclosures do not establish that those transitions caused the results.

Did Unity beat Q2 2024 guidance?

Yes, on the two measures highlighted in its August 2024 shareholder letter. Unity reported $426 million in strategic-portfolio revenue, above its $420 million–$425 million guidance range, and $113 million in total-company Adjusted EBITDA, above its $75 million–$80 million range. These were beats against Unity’s own guidance, not a comparison with analyst consensus.

CEO Matt Bromberg wrote, “We are pleased that second quarter results exceeded guidance for both revenue and Adjusted EBITDA.” In that statement, “revenue” refers to strategic-portfolio revenue, while Adjusted EBITDA is a total-company measure.

How did revenue and profitability compare?

The guidance beat does not mean revenue grew across the company. Unity reported $449 million in total revenue, down 16% year over year, primarily attributing the decline to portfolio changes. Strategic-portfolio revenue was $426 million, down 6%; non-strategic-portfolio revenue was $23 million, down 71%.

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Unity also reported a GAAP net loss of $126 million, compared with a $193 million loss in Q2 2023 and a $291 million loss in Q1 2024. Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP measure, so it should be read alongside—not instead of—the GAAP result. Unity cautions that non-GAAP measures lack a standardized meaning under GAAP, may be calculated differently by different companies, and are supplemental rather than a substitute for GAAP financial statements.

How did Create and Grow perform?

Business Q2 2024 strategic-portfolio revenue Year over year Sequentially
Create Solutions $129 million Up 4% Down 2%
Grow Solutions $296 million Down 9% Up 1%

Unity said Create’s 14% subscription growth drove its year-over-year increase. The sequential decline followed a strong first quarter for Strategic Partnerships and Professional Services. Grow returned to sequential growth after two quarters of declines, although its revenue remained below the year-earlier quarter.

Why did Unity lower its 2024 guidance?

Despite beating Q2 guidance, Unity reduced both full-year ranges. Its revised outlook was $1.680 billion–$1.690 billion for strategic-portfolio revenue, down from $1.760 billion–$1.800 billion, and $340 million–$350 million for Adjusted EBITDA, down from $400 million–$425 million.

Management described the change as a more cautious view of recovery in Grow Solutions, saying product improvements would take time to deliver sustainable performance. It said lower projected revenue largely drove the EBITDA reduction, partly offset by additional cost savings. These are management’s explanations and expectations, not independently established causes or guaranteed outcomes.

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What changed in Unity’s leadership?

  • May 1, 2024: Unity announced Matthew Bromberg as CEO, president and board member, effective May 15. Jim Whitehurst, previously interim CEO, became executive chair; Roelof Botha moved from board chair to lead independent director.
  • August 8, 2024: The shareholder letter said CFO Luis Visoso was leaving to pursue another opportunity. Chief Accounting Officer Mark Barrysmith became interim CFO while Unity searched for a permanent CFO.
  • Advertising leadership: Unity announced that Jim Payne would join as Chief Product Officer for Advertising, effective August 12, following the prior month’s hire of Alex Blum as SVP of Corporate Development. Payne co-founded MoPub and MAX and founded CloudExchange; Unity said it was acquiring CloudExchange’s assets.

The timing places these changes alongside the reported quarter, but Unity’s disclosures do not show that the appointments or departures produced the financial results.

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How to read Unity’s market-scale claims

Unity’s shareholder letter also presented company-published scale figures: it said applications made with Unity averaged 3.7 billion monthly downloads in 2023, combining 3.44 billion mobile downloads based on data.ai data with Unity’s internal estimate of 271 million Steam downloads over the 12 months ended December 31, 2023. The letter also said 70% of the world’s top mobile games were built on Unity, its advertising delivered over 65 billion monthly impressions reaching over 1.5 billion individual gamers, and mobile gaming represented 60% of approximately $130 billion in annual consumer app spending. These are assertions in Unity’s disclosure, not independently verified findings.

Unity’s shareholder letter is marked August 8, 2024; its investor-relations page lists the publication date as August 9, 2024. Unity Q2 2024 Shareholder Letter; Unity investor-relations publication page.

Leadership timeline sources: Unity’s May 1, 2024 leadership announcement and Unity’s August 8, 2024 advertising leadership announcement.

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