PLTK

Image source: The Motley Fool. Thursday, Aug. 6, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. ET Senior Vice President, Corporate Finance and Investor Relations - Elad Amit Co-Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer - Robert Antokol Chief Financial Officer - Tae Lee Operator: Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call for Playtika. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your first speaker for today, Elad Amit, Senior Vice President, Corporate Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Elad Amit: Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us today for the Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call for Playtika Holding Corp. Joining me on the call today is Robert Antokol, Co-Founder, President and CEO; and Tae Lee, Chief Financial Officer. I would like to remind you that today's discussion may contain forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, the company's anticipated future revenue and operating performance, including expected marketing investment activity and the impact of AI on the company's business and industry. These statements and other comments are not a guarantee of future performance, but rather are subject to risks and uncertainty, some which are beyond our control. These forward-looking statements apply as of today, and you should not rely on them as representing our view in the future. We undertake no obligation to update these statements after this call. We have posted an accompanying slide deck to our Investor Relations website, which contain information on forward-looking statements and non-GAAP measures, and we will also post our prepared remarks immediately following the call. For a more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties, please see our filings with the SEC. As a reminder, we will not be taking questions related to the strategic alternatives review. With that, I will now turn the call over to Robert. Robert Antokol: Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I want to speak directly today. There are a few questions we know are on your mind about Playtika. Can we grow? Can we launch a new hit? And when we invest to grow, does it last? These are the right questions to ask. And today, I want to answer them with results, no words. Let's start with what matters most. Our business model works. When we bring players into our games, the goal is to have them stay, not for a quarter, but for years. They keep playing, they keep spending long after we first bring them in. This is the heart of Playtika. It is what we have built since I have started this company 16 years ago. And this quarter, we clearly saw it again. Look at Disney Solitaire. In the first quarter, we increased our investment to grow this game. And you ask a fair question, what happens when you spend less? Do the player leave? How sustainable is the growth? This quarter, we have a clear answer. We brought our marketing spending down and the game still grew. This only happens when the players you have added continue to stay with you when they keep playing and they keep spending. And this is how we ask you to judge this business. This is the right way to judge a live game. It's over its full life, how long the players stay and how much they are worth over that lifetime? What matters is a long-term engagement. The players will stay for years. By this standard, Disney Solitaire has the potential to be one of the best games we have ever built. Our older game make the same point. Slotomania started this company 16 years ago, and it is still one of the most important games we have in our portfolio, not because of its size today, but because of what it proves 16 years on, it is still here, stable performance for 3 quarters and still supported by community of players who have stayed within 4 years. When a game holds its players for that long, that is not a luck. That is the model working. We told you the last quarter that our marketing spending would come down as the year went on. It did. And as it came down, our margin moved up. Our adjusted EBITDA margin this quarter was 28.2%, up from 16.8% in the first quarter. D2C is another area where we did what we said. We told you we would grow this channel and use it to protect our margins. That is exactly what we did. This quarter, D2C reached to 39.3% of revenue. This channel is the key part of our future. Let me close with this. Trust is earned. It is earned by saying what we will do and then doing it. We said the players will invest, will stay and keep spending. And this quarter, they did. We said our margin would rise and they did. We said we would grow D2C to protect margin, and we did. This is a company that does what it says. And that is how we will keep earning your trust. With that, let me hand it over to Tae to take you through the numbers. Thank you. Tae Lee: Thank you, Robert, and good morning. In the second quarter, we saw the dynamics we described last quarter play out. Our marketing expenditure stepped down materially as the year progressed. Margins increased and Super Play became a positive adjusted EBITDA contributor beginning in the second quarter. Before I walk through the numbers, I want to give you 3 points to keep in mind as you interpret our results and think about the rest of the year. First, the margin recovery this quarter was not an accident. It was the plan. We front-loaded user acquisition spend into the first half and especially the first quarter. And as that spend came down in the second quarter, the profitability of the business came through. This front-loading was driven largely by our Super Play titles, where the structure of the earnout incentivizes concentrating investment early in the year. The result this quarter is the operating model working as designed, invest to grow and then let the profitability follow. Second, and closely related, the cadence of our marketing spend will shape the revenue trajectory for the rest of the year. Because so much of our user acquisition spend was concentrated in the first half, we expect revenue in our Super Play studio to decline on a sequential basis in the second half versus the first half, even as these titles grow year-over-year. I want to be clear about what this is. It is not a loss of momentum, and it is not the game is weakening. It is a direct result of a deliberate choice in the timing of our spend made in the context of the Super Play earnout. We would encourage you to judge these titles on their full year growth and their lifetime economics, not on the movement from one quarter to the next. Third, we saw the consumer sentiment softened as the quarter went on in Q2, and we are watching it closely. We started to observe a slowdown in the industry mid-quarter, which we attribute to weakening consumer confidence. Inflation has been a persistent pressure on the consumer this year, and we believe it weighed on discretionary spending, including our category. We think this impacted our second quarter results, and it is a key reason we're taking a measured view of the second half, which I will come back to when we discuss guidance. With that framing, let us go through the financial results. In the second quarter, we delivered total revenue of $731.1 million, down 1.8% sequentially and up 5.0% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA was $206.1 million, representing a margin of 28.2%. Net income was $48 million and adjusted net income was $53.6 million. We delivered DTC revenue of $286.9 million, down 1.7% sequentially and up 63.1% year-over-year. Now let's turn to the portfolio, starting with the performance in our top 3 revenue titles for the quarter, Bingo Blitz, Disney Solitaire and June's Journey. Bingo Blitz delivered $145.1 million of revenue this quarter, down 5.6% sequentially and 9.5% year-over-year. The revenue decline looks steeper than last quarter, but let me explain what's driving it because the composition here matters. The majority of the year-over-year decline is concentrated in players acquired within the last 12 months as we moved away from acquisition channels that brought in high volumes of short-lived incentive-driven users and toward investing in our existing long-term players, the community that's always been the foundation of this franchise. Our long-tenured players who have been with Bingo Blitz for more than 1 year generate most of the games revenue and remain the foundation of this franchise. DTC continues to support the games economics and Bingo Blitz remains the #1 Bingo title worldwide. Disney Solitaire generated $142.4 million of revenue this quarter, up 15.5% sequentially and 288.6% year-over-year. I want to spend a moment on Disney Solitaire, both on what the results tell you about the business and how you should model it for the rest of the year. The key point is this, we grew Disney Solitaire revenue this quarter while bringing our marketing spend on the title down meaningfully from the first quarter. Growing revenue on lower acquisition spend is only possible when the players you've already brought in stay and continue to engage. Now how to model it from here? Our user acquisition investment in Disney Solitaire is unusually front-loaded this year, more so than we would run a new title in the normal course. This reflects the structure of the Super Play earnout, where the studio is incentivized to grow revenue year-over-year while increasing EBITDA margins. Having concentrated that investment in the first half, we are reducing Disney Solitaire spend significantly in the back half, and that step down converts into higher EBITDA margins as the year progresses. The direct consequence is that Disney Solitaire revenue is likely to decline on a sequential basis in the second half even as it grows year-over-year. This is a function of the spend timing that I just described, not of the title's health or long-term potential. Disney Solitaire is early in its life, and we believe it will continue to scale. When our investment in the game normalizes, we would expect this trajectory to reflect that. The right way to judge this game is on its full year growth and its lifetime economics, not on the sequential movement that our spending timing creates. June's Journey revenue for the quarter was $74.7 million, down 1.7% sequentially and up 8.1% year-over-year. We continue to see strong trends in monetization driven by improvement in our events, segmentation and campaign tools. Engagement among our long-tenured players remains at elevated levels. And this past quarter, we launched a successful new IP collaboration with Agatha Christie, which was well received by the June's Journey community. June's Journey remains one of our strongest and most durable casual titles and a top revenue contributor to the portfolio. Let's turn to specific line items in our P&L. Cost of revenue was $192.9 million, down 1.5% year-over-year. Like the first quarter, the decline was primarily driven by lower platform fees resulting from the continued growth of our DTC business, partially offset by higher royalty expenses. R&D was $96.4 million, down 15.8% year-over-year. The steeper decline this quarter reflects the full quarter benefit of the cost actions we began earlier in the year on lower headcount and reduced outsourcing expenses, now without the severance costs that partially offset the savings in the first quarter. This is a good example of the discipline we brought to our cost structure carrying through the bottom line. Sales and marketing was $252.6 million, down 2% year-over-year and down 30% sequentially, reflecting the significant step down in marketing spend we told you to expect after our front-loaded first quarter, and we expect spend to step down further in the second half. G&A was $54.1 million, up 202.2% year-over-year. The reported year-over-year increase is not meaningful on its own because the prior year quarter included a onetime benefit from the revaluation of contingent consideration, which reduced G&A in that period. Adjusting for that item, G&A was up 2.3% year-over-year. There were no significant onetime items in the second quarter. Average daily paying users was 367,000, down 5.2% sequentially and down 2.9% year-over-year. Average daily active users was 8 million, down 7.0% sequentially and down 9.1% year-over-year. ARPDAU was up 7.4% sequentially and 16.1% year-over-year. Turning to the balance sheet. As of June 30, we had approximately $438.5 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. Turning to guidance. We are maintaining our full year revenue and adjusted EBITDA ranges. That said, based on what we see today, we expect to finish the year towards the lower end of both ranges. There are 2 factors driving this. The first is deliberate and within our control. As I described, we front-loaded our marketing investment into the first half, and we're stepping that expenditure down meaningfully in the back half. That reduces revenue in the second half by design, while supporting the margin expansion you saw this quarter. The second factor is the consumer. As I noted earlier, we saw demand soften across the industry mid-quarter, which we believe reflects the pressure that persistent inflation has placed on discretionary spending. We are taking a prudent view of how that carries into the second half. Taken together, our investment cadence decision and our measured read of the consumer are the primary drivers why we expect to land towards the lower end of our ranges for the full year. We'd be happy to take your questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Aaron Lee with Macquarie. Aaron Lee: I appreciate all the color on the call about guidance and the games. Maybe just starting with guidance. So I understand why revenue cut up in the lower end of the range just given the factors that you've laid out, the planned marketing spend reduction and consumer softening. But if the marketing spend is coming down, wouldn't that imply a benefit to EBITDA? So it's winding up in the lower end of the range. Is that just cost deleverage? Or can you help me understand that? Tae Lee: Yes, Aaron, thanks for the question. Listen, on the range, we reaffirmed it. Q2 came in ahead of consensus on revenue and adjusted EBITDA. You saw the margin uplift versus the first quarter, and you also saw Super Play turning EBITDA positive as we said it would. What we're doing is guiding you where inside the range we currently expect to land because we want to find alignment in the shape of the remaining second half of the year versus how the street may be modeling the business. Our first half came in above where the street had it, and the full year range hasn't moved since we updated the range in the past call. And we want to close that gap, and we prefer to do it now versus later in the year after the third quarter. There's a couple of different things driving the second half. The first, as we just mentioned, is sort of the biggest and it's entirely ours. We front-loaded user acquisition into the first half, especially into the first quarter, and that's largely driven by the structure of the earn-out. That spend steps down in the second half. The revenue follows spend with a lag. So second half revenue steps down sequentially from the first half. One thing to note for everyone as you model the back half of the year, that reduction is also weighted towards the third quarter. That's where the largest single step down sits and then you see more sort of even spend in the last quarter versus the third. So the second half sequential pattern, it's not linear. It's timing. It's not trajectory. The titles that we will see the biggest change in marketing spend in the first half versus second half, we expect those titles to still grow year-over-year. Now coming back to your question around some of the cost leverage, one aspect of it is also within Bingo. The decline that we reported this quarter is concentrated in players we acquired within the last 12 months following some of the mix change in marketing that we made in Q4 of last year. Now that change annualizes through the back half. So the year-over-year comparisons do get a little bit harder in the second half, not easier. And so I'd underline the other side of that, which is that our players who've been with the game for over a year were essentially flat, and they do generate the majority of the gaming revenue today. And that is part of the franchise we're managing to. But again, some of the portfolio mix shift does impact EBITDA. And in addition to that, you kind of heard us say this before, which is we reserve the right to think about how spending -- incremental spend also as the year sort of ends in order for giving us sort of that strong start heading into the year after. So some of it is flexibility, some of it is the portfolio mix shift. And then the last point that I'll just emphasize, which we spoke about on the call, is around the consumer. And again, this is specifically why we're pointing to the lower end of the ranges. And just to give a little more color, in our own portfolio, we saw that step down from May to June. And we have that level of seasonality every year. It's just that this year, we saw a step down that was greater than what's typical. So it's a seasonal pattern. It was a little bit steeper this year, and that's consistent with also what we're seeing for external data, whether it's consumer sentiment, just the consumer reacting to a lot of volatility as they assess the impact of inflation on what they have with discretionary spending. And so we're not going to over attribute our quarter to it, but we do think it's real and our prudence on the back half is the right posture is our point of view. Aaron Lee: Great. That's helpful color. And then, yes, I appreciate all the color you guys also gave on the call about the different game performance. Just want to dig a little deeper into Slotomania. I believe you guys mentioned it's been 3 quarters of stable performance there. Can you just update us on -- I believe in the past, you've said that once you kind of get this in a stabilization area, then you could perhaps start leaning more into marketing. Like is that still in the cards given the planned step down in marketing? And how are trends within your other social casino titles? Robert Antokol: So thanks for the question. And for me, and I spoke a few quarters ago, Slotomania was really a big test for Playtika. Slotomania was our first game, and we had a very hard year. But we said -- always said that we believe in the title, believe in the game, and we know how to stabilize it. And actually, this is one of -- when I look at the history of Playtika, this is one of the most important things that happened to us to take a title that got held to fix it, to stabilize 3 quarters in a row. This is not something -- a very easy mission. And you are right about the marketing. We are now starting to finalize new campaigns. We started to look at the future of the game. We still believe in this title, and we believe in the genre. We have 2 more titles, and it looks much better than it looked a year ago. And again, as I said before, I'm very excited about it and very proud about the work that the guys in the studio did. Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Doug Creutz with TD Cowen. Douglas Creutz: Presumably, your willingness to invest in user acquisition for a title is determined by what you have to spend to acquire the users and what the LTV of those users winds up being. I know that cost of UA is historically lower in Q1, which is why you've favored that quarter. It does seem that the Q2 results and the retention of the Disney Solitaire users suggests that the LTV is pretty high. And therefore, why wouldn't you want to keep spending on user acquisition regardless of any considerations of earn-out or anything like that? Tae Lee: Thanks for the question, Doug. I think let me cover a couple of different points here. So we made a significant reduction in Disney Solitaire marketing quarter-over-quarter and revenue still grew over 15% sequentially, along with the right KPI metrics that you want to see. Revenue that grows with new installs coming down, that only happens if the players are already in the game are staying and spending more. And so in terms of durability, I think you'd agree that's about as clean a read on durability as you get. The sequential revenue in a live game is what you earn from the players you bring in the quarter plus the carryover, right, from every cohort you've acquired. And in a mature title, that carryover base is the majority of the revenue, think core titles like Bingo Blitz, Slotomania and June's Journey, it's most of the revenue and it's very stable. That's what a deep cohort base does. And you have basically the advantage of the cohorts you've built over time when you've been running a game for several years. Disney Solitaire is only 15 months old. It launched last year, global launch was April of last year. It doesn't yet have that base because we're still building it. And so when we take marketing investment down, you don't have enough carryover underneath it to fully offset it. And so that's why we expect total revenue to step down sequentially. And from our point of view, that's not the game weakening. It's a young title behaving like a young title. And to put a little bit more of a finer point on it, we're reducing Super Play -- overall Super Play marketing investment by roughly 70% in the second half versus the first half. But in terms of the revenue decline that we expect, it's nowhere close to that, right? And so that step down also is concentrated in Disney Solitaire, which carries the largest single reduction in user acquisition spend. But coming back to then sort of the crux of your question, as we've previously discussed, the front-loaded spend is due to the earn-out framework. The Super Play earn-out is measured on a full year basis, and it carries 2 conditions: year-over-year revenue growth and margin expansion. Now the objective is defined that way, is the efficient path is to invest early. So the revenue you build compound across the remaining months of the year and then you step down to the margins come through in the back half. The reason we emphasized the positive adjusted EBITDA contribution of Super Play in the second quarter was when you saw our Q1 print and you saw an adjusted EBITDA number with margins in the 16%, 17%, which is obviously much lower than what you're used to seeing. Again, that's a function of the growing growth of the Super Play game in our portfolio, it's margin dilutive this year, but we're okay with that. We've set up the earn-out framework intentionally in a way where you can't just spend your way to growth. And so there's a different way -- there's different ways to sort of grow a game, and we've spoken in the past about how each game has a natural ceiling. And right now, frankly, we don't know the full potential of Disney Solitaire. We're going to keep on growing this game, but we're going to do it in a way that's profitable. And that's the path that we've taken. That's the path that we chose when we structured the deal in the first place when we acquired Super Play. There's continued investment. Now just because we're decreasing user acquisition spend in the second half, that doesn't mean we're not investing in the game, right? The product road map is unchanged. We have new gameplay modes and content that will continue to ship in the third quarter and the fourth quarter. So again, I think it's a matter of us building and scaling this game in a profitable way. The point that I would just emphasize and leave you with is that we want to do it in a way where we're focused on retention, we're focused on monetization. The consequence is that because of the framework of the earn-out, some of the quarterly acquisition cohorts will be lumpy. You're seeing some of the quarterly variability. But on an annual basis, this matters much less. And so I just emphasize the point that we had in our prepared remarks, which is that we're asking that you judge these titles on their full year growth and full year margin because we do see potential here. Operator: Your last question comes from the line of Albert Kim with UBS. Albert Kim: Just a quick follow-up on the outlook. Any color on how much of the change and the update relates to Super Play versus performance in the legacy games? And just on the D2C side, the mix has been kind of strong towards the 40% mix you previously talked about reaching a few years. Can you provide any updated thoughts on that longer-term target and what kind of the upper limit on the penetration is in your view? Tae Lee: Thanks for the question, Albert. The 39% number, that's the number in aggregate. So if you look at it on a game-by-game basis, naturally, you're going to have certain games that have DTC penetration that is higher than the overall number. And we also have games where it's lower than that number. And that really becomes a function of how long we've had DTC. So DTC is a multifaceted platform, right? It's not just one channel. There's different ways to generate DTC revenue. And so each game, as it is on at a different place in its life cycle of the game, same thing when it comes to DTC. So it's a function of what initiatives a studio is prioritizing. And so there's going to be continued sort of natural upside as across the games, DTC begins to become sort of a larger part of each game sort of revenue mix. We're not giving an updated target today. I think the point that we would emphasize is that it continues to be something that defends our margin. We intentionally prioritized this last year. That's why you're seeing the rapid ramp-up you've seen over the last 12 months, and it's a key part of our strategy going forward. In terms of the guide, I think we sort of already addressed that question of the different components. So I won't be breaking out exactly what is driving what. But again, we're reaffirming the range just to emphasize that point, but we are pointing you towards the bottom end of that given what we see in terms of the outlook for the rest of the year. Operator: This concludes the question-and-answer session. Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program, and you may now disconnect. Before you buy stock in Playtika, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Playtika wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $400,209!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,375,393!* Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 964% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 215% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of August 13, 2026. This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Playtika (PLTK) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool

Snail, Inc. SNAL is scheduled to release second-quarter 2026 results on Aug 11. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SNAL’s second-quarter 2026 earnings per share (EPS) is pegged at 31 cents, indicating a 94.5% decline from $5.65 reported in the prior-year quarter. The consensus mark for earnings has witnessed downward revisions in the past 60 days. SNAL’s earnings have surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three out of the trailing four quarters and missed on one occasion, with an average beat being 2,808.4%. The consensus mark for second-quarter 2026 revenues is pegged at $29 million, indicating a 30.7% increase from the year-ago quarter’s reported figure. Our proven model does not predict an earnings beat for Snail this time. The combination of a positive Earnings ESP and a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), 2 (Buy) or 3 (Hold) increases the odds of an earnings beat, which is not the case here. SNAL’s Earnings ESP: SNAL has an Earnings ESP of 0.00%. You can uncover the best stocks to buy or sell before they’re reported with our Earnings ESP Filter. Snail Zacks Rank: The company carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here. Snail is likely to have benefited from a strong slate of ARK-related content in the second quarter, with player engagement and monetization potentially receiving a lift from new releases. The company had planned the Fantastic Tames Season 1 Expansion Pack for May and ARK Tides of Fortune for June, providing fresh content for ARK: Survival Ascended during the quarter. The franchise entered the period with solid momentum, as ASA sold 1.4 million units in first-quarter, helped by promotional activity and the success of the Lost Colony DLC. A major potential catalyst for second-quarter 2026 revenue is the planned release of the ASA remake of ARK Genesis Part 1. Snail expects this launch to trigger recognition of roughly $11 million of revenues that had previously been deferred. The revenue recognition could therefore create a meaningful year-over-year increase in quarterly sales, particularly alongside contributions from other ARK content. Bellwright could provide another source of revenue growth, supported by the positive response to its late-2025 content update. The title helped drive first-quarter 2026 performance, while the company’s broader portfolio of indie games and licensed properties provides additional revenue opportunities. Snail also has a number of ARK-related releases and other projects scheduled across 2026, which should help broaden its revenue base beyond the core franchise. On the downside, declining revenues from ARK Mobile and ARK: Survival Evolved could temper the overall improvement in sales. Profitability might have faced pressure from continued investment in Snail’s expanding game pipeline. The company is advancing three AAA titles while simultaneously funding ARK DLCs and other projects.  Although management said it remains disciplined on spending, elevated development activity could continue to weigh on the bottom line in second-quarter 2026. Shares of Snail have surged 105.2% in the past three months against the industry’s decline of 16.3%. The stock has also outperformed other industry players like Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. TTWO and Playtika Holding Corp. PLTK, as shown in the chart. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research From a valuation standpoint, SNAL trades at a forward price-to-sales (P/S) multiple of 0.36, above the industry’s average of 1.85. Conversely, industry players, such as Take-Two Interactive Software and Playtika Holding, have P/E multiples of 5.21 and 0.4, respectively. Image Source: Zacks Investment Research Given the sharp recent rally, the lack of a favorable earnings signal and the company’s continued investment requirements, investors may want to remain cautious on SNAL ahead of its second-quarter results. Although ARK content and the expected recognition of deferred revenues could support sales, the company remains heavily reliant on the ARK franchise while older titles face pressure. At the same time, advancing multiple AAA projects and developing additional content could keep costs elevated and limit bottom-line improvement. The absence of a positive earnings surprise signal further reduces the near-term catalyst for the stock. With the shares already having rallied strongly, expectations appear elevated, leaving greater scope for disappointment if quarterly execution or the outlook falls short. Overall, the combination of potential earnings pressure, continued development spending, dependence on ARK and limited near-term visibility makes it prudent for investors to avoid SNAL ahead of the second-quarter results. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Snail, Inc. (SNAL) : Free Stock Analysis Report Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (TTWO) : Free Stock Analysis Report Playtika Holding Corp. (PLTK) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Our analysts just identified a stock with the potential to be the next Nvidia. Tell us how you invest and we'll show you why it's our #1 pick. Tap here. Management attributed the sequential margin expansion to a deliberate front-loading of marketing spend in Q1, allowing profitability to emerge as acquisition costs normalized in Q2. The Disney Solitaire title demonstrated high durability, growing revenue by 15.5% sequentially despite a meaningful reduction in marketing investment, validating the game's long-term player value. Slotomania achieved its third consecutive quarter of stable performance, which management views as a successful turnaround of their legacy franchise through operational discipline. Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) revenue reached 39.3% of total revenue, serving as a critical strategic lever to protect margins against platform fees and macroeconomic volatility. Bingo Blitz performance was impacted by a strategic pivot away from high-volume, short-lived incentive-driven users toward higher-quality, long-tenured players who provide a more stable revenue foundation. Operational efficiency was bolstered by a 15.8% year-over-year reduction in R&D expenses, reflecting the full benefit of headcount actions and reduced outsourcing costs. Management expects to finish the year at the lower end of revenue and EBITDA ranges due to a planned 70% reduction in Super Play marketing spend in the second half. Guidance assumes a cautious stance on consumer sentiment, noting that mid-quarter softening in discretionary spending was steeper than typical seasonal patterns. Revenue for Super Play titles is expected to decline sequentially in the second half as a direct result of the front-loaded investment strategy tied to earn-out structures. The company anticipates year-over-year comparisons for Bingo Blitz will become more challenging in the second half as the Q4 2023 marketing mix shift annualizes. Management intends to maintain flexibility in year-end marketing spend to ensure a strong competitive position heading into the next fiscal year. The Super Play earn-out structure, which requires both revenue growth and margin expansion, is the primary driver behind the lumpy quarterly marketing spend and revenue trajectory. Persistent inflation is identified as a key headwind, weighing on consumer confidence and impacting the broader mobile gaming industry's discretionary spending levels. G&A expenses showed a significant year-over-year increase primarily due to a prior-year one-time benefit from a contingent consideration revaluation, rather than a structural cost increase. Management explicitly declined to provide updates or commentary regarding the ongoing strategic alternatives review during the call. One stock. Nvidia-level potential. 30M+ investors trust Moby to find it first. Get the pick. Tap here. Management clarified that while lower spend helps margins, the revenue decline follows spend with a lag, creating a non-linear sequential pattern weighted toward Q3. The decision to point toward the lower end of the range reflects a desire to align Street models with the specific timing of the Super Play earn-out cycle. Having stabilized the title for three quarters, management is now finalizing new marketing campaigns to return the game to growth. The company expressed renewed confidence in the social casino genre based on the successful stabilization of their oldest franchise. The reduction is a tactical choice driven by the annual earn-out framework rather than a lack of confidence in the title's LTV or potential. Management emphasized that the game is only 15 months old and lacks the deep cohort base of mature titles to fully offset large marketing step-downs in the short term. While no new target was set beyond the current 39.3%, management noted that individual games have significantly higher penetration depending on their lifecycle. DTC remains the primary defense against platform fee pressure and is a core component of the long-term margin strategy.

Interested in Playtika Holding Corp.? Here are five stocks we like better. Playtika’s second-quarter revenue rose 5% year over year to $731.1 million, while adjusted EBITDA reached $206.1 million, lifting the margin to 28.2% as marketing spending fell 30% sequentially. Management maintained full-year guidance but expects revenue and adjusted EBITDA near the lower ends of the ranges, citing planned marketing cuts and softer consumer demand. Marketing reductions are expected to be largest in the third quarter. Disney Solitaire remained a major growth driver, with revenue up 289% year over year to $142.4 million, while direct-to-consumer revenue climbed 63% to $286.9 million and reached 39.3% of total revenue. Playtika (NASDAQ:PLTK) reported second-quarter revenue of $731.1 million, up 5.0% from a year earlier but down 1.8% sequentially, as the mobile-game company reduced marketing spending after front-loading user acquisition investment earlier in the year. Adjusted EBITDA totaled $206.1 million, producing a 28.2% margin, compared with a 16.8% margin in the first quarter. Net income was $48 million, while adjusted net income was $53.6 million. → Meta’s Earnings Drop Shows Wall Street Wants More Than Ad Growth Management maintained its full-year revenue and adjusted EBITDA guidance ranges, but said it now expects results to land toward the lower end of both ranges. CFO Tae Lee cited the planned reduction in marketing investment during the second half and a more cautious view of consumer spending following softer demand observed late in the second quarter. CEO Robert Antokol said the quarter demonstrated the company’s model of investing in player acquisition and benefiting from longer-term player retention and spending. He pointed to Disney Solitaire, where Playtika reduced marketing spending from the first quarter while revenue continued to grow. → 4 Oil and Gas ETF Plays as Prices Stay Sky-High “We brought our marketing spending down and the game still grew,” Antokol said. “This only happens when the players you have added continue to stay with you, when they keep playing and they keep spending.” Sales and marketing expense was $252.6 million, down 30% sequentially and 2% year-over-year. Lee said the reduction reflected the company’s planned step-down in spending following heavier first-quarter investment, particularly in SuperPlay titles. Playtika expects marketing spending to decline further in the second half. → Ulta's Growth Is Real, But So Are the Risks Lee said the timing of user-acquisition spending was influenced by the structure of SuperPlay’s earn-out, which is based on full-year revenue growth and EBITDA margin expansion. The company concentrated spending earlier in the year to build revenue cohorts, then reduced spending to allow profitability to improve. SuperPlay became a positive adjusted EBITDA contributor during the second quarter, according to management. However, Lee said revenue from the studio’s games is expected to decline sequentially in the second half as marketing spending falls, while still growing year-over-year. Disney Solitaire generated $142.4 million in second-quarter revenue, increasing 15.5% sequentially and 288.6% year-over-year. The game launched globally in April 2025 and remains early in its lifecycle, Lee said. Management expects Disney Solitaire revenue to decline sequentially during the second half because of reduced user-acquisition investment. Lee emphasized that this expected decline reflects spending timing rather than weakening engagement or the game’s long-term prospects. “We’re going to keep on growing this game, but we’re going to do it in a way that’s profitable,” Lee said, adding that the product roadmap includes new gameplay modes and content planned for the third and fourth quarters. Bingo Blitz remained the company’s largest revenue title, delivering $145.1 million in revenue. That result was down 5.6% sequentially and 9.5% year-over-year. Lee said much of the year-over-year decline was concentrated among players acquired within the last 12 months, after the company moved away from acquisition channels that produced high volumes of incentive-driven users with shorter lifespans. According to Lee, players who have been with Bingo Blitz for more than a year generate most of the title’s revenue and remained the franchise’s foundation. He added that Bingo Blitz remained the top bingo title worldwide. June’s Journey produced $74.7 million in revenue, down 1.7% sequentially but up 8.1% year-over-year. Management cited stronger monetization from events, segmentation and campaign tools, along with continued elevated engagement among long-tenured players. The company also launched an Agatha Christie intellectual-property collaboration during the quarter. Antokol also highlighted Slotomania, which he said has posted stable performance for three consecutive quarters after a difficult period. The company is finalizing new marketing campaigns and evaluating the title’s future growth opportunities, he said. Direct-to-consumer revenue reached $286.9 million, down 1.7% sequentially but up 63.1% year-over-year. DTC represented 39.3% of total revenue in the quarter, approaching the 40% level that management had previously discussed as a longer-term objective. Lee said Playtika was not providing an updated DTC target, but described the channel as a key part of its margin-protection strategy. DTC penetration varies by game based on the maturity of each title’s platform and the initiatives prioritized by individual studios, he said. Cost of revenue was $192.9 million, down 1.5% year-over-year, primarily reflecting lower platform fees from DTC growth, partly offset by higher royalty expenses. Research and development expense was $96.4 million, down 15.8% year-over-year, reflecting lower headcount and outsourcing costs. General and administrative expense was $54.1 million, up 202.2% year-over-year, though management said the comparison was affected by a one-time contingent-consideration revaluation benefit in the prior-year period. Excluding that item, G&A increased 2.3%. Average daily paying users totaled 367,000, down 5.2% sequentially and 2.9% year-over-year. Average daily active users fell 7.0% sequentially and 9.1% from a year earlier to 8 million. Average revenue per daily active user increased 7.4% sequentially and 16.1% year-over-year. As of June 30, Playtika held approximately $438.5 million in cash equivalents and short-term investments. While management reaffirmed annual guidance, Lee said Playtika observed a larger-than-usual seasonal decline in demand from May to June. The company attributed the softer trends to pressure on discretionary spending from persistent inflation and weakening consumer confidence. “We’re not going to over attribute our quarter to it, but we do think it’s real and are prudent on the back half,” Lee said. The company said the largest marketing-spending reduction is expected in the third quarter, with spending then becoming more even during the final quarter of the year. Management said it intends to continue evaluating opportunities for incremental investment that could support a stronger start to the following year. Playtika Ltd. (NASDAQ: PLTK) is a leading developer and publisher of free-to-play mobile and social games. Established in 2010 and headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, the company has built a reputation for creating engaging, social casino and casual gaming experiences. Playtika's platform leverages data-driven analytics and in-game community features to drive player retention and monetization across multiple titles. The company's diverse portfolio includes flagship social casino games such as Slotomania, Bingo Blitz and Caesars Casino, as well as skill-based and casual offerings like World Series of Poker and House of Fun. This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected]. The article "Playtika Q2 Earnings Call Highlights" was originally published by MarketBeat. View MarketBeat's top stocks for August 2026.

Revenue of $731.1 million and Direct-to-Consumer (“DTC”) Revenue of $286.9 millionRevenue Decreased (1.8)% Sequentially and Increased 5.0% Year Over Year DTC Platforms Revenue Decreased (1.7)% Sequentially and Increased 63.1% Year Over Year HERZLIYA, Israel, Aug. 06, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Playtika Holding Corp. (NASDAQ: PLTK) today released financial results for its second quarter for the period ending June 30, 2026. Financial Highlights Revenue of $731.1 million decreased (1.8)% sequentially and increased 5.0% year over year. DTC platforms revenue of $286.9 million decreased (1.7)% sequentially and increased 63.1% year over year. Net Income of $48.0 million and Adjusted Net Income of $53.6 million. Adjusted EBITDA of $206.1 million increased 64.6% sequentially and 23.4% year over year. Cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments totaled $438.5 million as of June 30, 2026. “Our second quarter results demonstrate what has always been at the heart of Playtika, we build games that keep players engaged for years, not quarters,” said Robert Antokol, Chief Executive Officer. “Disney Solitaire grew again this quarter even as we reduced our marketing investment and our margins expanded meaningfully. These results reflect the durability of our model and the discipline of our execution.” “Our second quarter reflected the investment cadence we outlined last quarter, marketing stepped down materially, margins expanded, and SuperPlay became a positive Adjusted EBITDA contributor,” said Tae Lee, Chief Financial Officer. Selected Operational Metrics and Business Highlights Average Daily Paying Users of 367K decreased (5.2)% sequentially and (2.9)% year over year. Average Payer Conversion of 4.6%, up from 4.5% in Q1 2026 and 4.3% in Q2 2025. Bingo Blitz revenue of $145.1 million decreased (5.6)% sequentially and (9.5)% year over year. Disney Solitaire revenue of $142.4 million increased 15.5% sequentially and 288.6% year over year. June’s Journey revenue of $74.7 million decreased (1.7)% sequentially and increased 8.1% year over year. Financial Outlook We are reaffirming our full-year 2026 guidance ranges of $2.75 - $2.85 billion in revenue and $750 - $790 million in Adjusted EBITDA. Based on current trends, including a more cautious view of consumer spending and the planned step-down in second-half marketing investment, we currently expect full-year results to finish toward the lower end of both ranges. Conference Call Playtika management will host a conference call at 5:30 a.m. Pacific Time (8:30 a.m. Eastern Time) today to discuss the company’s results. The conference call can be accessed via a webcast accessible at investors.playtika.com. A replay of the call will be available through the website one hour following the call and will be archived for one year. Summary Operating Results of Playtika Holding Corp. About Playtika Holding Corp. Playtika (NASDAQ: PLTK) is a mobile gaming entertainment and technology market leader with a portfolio of multiple game titles. Founded in 2010, Playtika was among the first to offer free-to-play social games on social networks and, shortly after, on mobile platforms. Headquartered in Herzliya, Israel, and guided by a mission to entertain the world through infinite ways to play, Playtika has employees across offices worldwide. Forward Looking Information This press release contains “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and Section 21E of the Exchange Act. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release, including statements regarding our business strategy, plans and our objectives for future operations, are forward-looking statements. Further, statements that include words such as “anticipate,” “believe,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “future,” “intend,” “intent,” “may,” “might,” “potential,” “present,” “preserve,” “project,” “pursue,” “should,” “will,” or “would,” or the negative of these words or other words or expressions of similar meaning may identify forward-looking statements. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events and trends that we believe may affect our financial condition, results of operations, business strategy, short-term and long-term business operations and objectives, and financial needs. The achievement or success of the matters covered by such forward-looking statements involves significant risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including, but not limited to, the risks and uncertainties discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Moreover, we operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment and industry. As a result, it is not possible for our management to assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements we may make. In light of these risks, uncertainties and assumptions, the forward-looking statements discussed in this press release may not occur and actual results could differ materially and adversely from those anticipated, predicted or implied in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from estimates or projections contained in the forward-looking statements include without limitation: actions of our majority shareholder or other third parties that influence us; our reliance on third-party platforms, such as the iOS App Store and Google Play Store, to distribute our games and collect revenues, and the risk that such platforms may adversely change their policies; our reliance on a limited number of games to generate the majority of our revenue; our reliance on a small percentage of total users to generate a majority of our revenue; our free-to-play business model, and the value of virtual items sold in our games, is highly dependent on how we manage the game revenues and pricing models; our inability to refinance our indebtedness, including, without limitation, our $550 million revolving credit facility which is set to expire in March 2027, or to obtain additional financing on favorable terms or at all; our inability to identify acquisition targets that fit our strategy or complete acquisitions and integrate any acquired businesses successfully or realize the anticipated benefits of such acquisitions could limit our growth, disrupt our plans and operations or impact the amount of capital allocated to mergers and acquisitions; our ability to compete in a highly competitive industry with low barriers to entry; our ability to retain existing players, attract new players and increase the monetization of our player base; our ability to develop and/or launch new products and content or otherwise execute against our product roadmap strategy; we have significant indebtedness and are subject to the obligations and restrictive covenants under our debt instruments; the impact of an economic recession or periods of increased inflation, and any reductions to household spending on the types of discretionary entertainment we offer; our controlled company status; legal or regulatory restrictions or proceedings could adversely impact our business and limit the growth of our operations; risks related to our international operations and ownership, including our significant operations in Israel and Ukraine and the fact that our controlling stockholder is a Chinese-owned company; geopolitical events such as the Wars in Israel and Ukraine; our reliance on key personnel; market conditions or other factors affecting the payment of dividends, including the decision whether or not to pay a dividend; uncertainties regarding the amount and timing of repurchases under our stock repurchase program; security breaches or other disruptions could compromise our information or our players’ information and expose us to liability; and our inability to protect our intellectual property and proprietary information could adversely impact our business. Non-GAAP Financial Measures Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted Net Income are non-GAAP financial measures and should not be construed as an alternative to net income as an indicator of operating performance, nor as an alternative to cash flow provided by operating activities as a measure of liquidity, or any other performance measure in each case as determined in accordance with GAAP. Our Credit Agreement defines Adjusted EBITDA as net income before (i) interest expense, (ii) interest income, (iii) provision for income taxes, (iv) depreciation and amortization expense, (v) impairment charges, (vi) stock-based compensation, (vii) contingent consideration, (viii) acquisition and related expenses, and (ix) certain other items. We calculate Adjusted EBITDA Margin as Adjusted EBITDA divided by revenues. We define Adjusted Net Income as net income before (i) impairment charges, and (ii) contingent consideration. Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA Margin and Adjusted Net Income as calculated herein may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies within the industry and are not determined in accordance with GAAP. Our presentation of Adjusted EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA Margin and Adjusted Net Income should not be construed as an inference that our future results will be unaffected by unusual or unexpected items. RECONCILIATION OF NET INCOME TO ADJUSTED EBITDA(In millions) The following table sets forth a reconciliation of Adjusted EBITDA to net income, the closest GAAP financial measure: RECONCILIATION OF NET INCOME TO ADJUSTED NET INCOME(In millions) The following table sets forth a reconciliation of Adjusted Net Income to net income (loss), the closest GAAP financial measure: ContactsInvestor [email protected] Source: Playtika Holding Corp.

Playtika Holding (PLTK) came out with quarterly earnings of $0.15 per share, in line with the Zacks Consensus Estimate . This compares to earnings of $0.02 per share a year ago. These figures are adjusted for non-recurring items. A quarter ago, it was expected that this mobile game developer would post earnings of $0.07 per share when it actually produced earnings of $0.04, delivering a surprise of -42.86%. Over the last four quarters, the company has surpassed consensus EPS estimates two times. Playtika, which belongs to the Zacks Gaming industry, posted revenues of $731.1 million for the quarter ended June 2026, surpassing the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 2.48%. This compares to year-ago revenues of $696 million. The company has topped consensus revenue estimates four times over the last four quarters. The sustainability of the stock's immediate price movement based on the recently-released numbers and future earnings expectations will mostly depend on management's commentary on the earnings call. Playtika shares have lost about 1.5% since the beginning of the year versus the S&P 500's gain of 12.8%. While Playtika has underperformed the market so far this year, the question that comes to investors' minds is: what's next for the stock? There are no easy answers to this key question, but one reliable measure that can help investors address this is the company's earnings outlook. Not only does this include current consensus earnings expectations for the coming quarter(s), but also how these expectations have changed lately. Empirical research shows a strong correlation between near-term stock movements and trends in earnings estimate revisions. Investors can track such revisions by themselves or rely on a tried-and-tested rating tool like the Zacks Rank, which has an impressive track record of harnessing the power of earnings estimate revisions. Ahead of this earnings release, the estimate revisions trend for Playtika was favorable. While the magnitude and direction of estimate revisions could change following the company's just-released earnings report, the current status translates into a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy) for the stock. So, the shares are expected to outperform the market in the near future. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here. It will be interesting to see how estimates for the coming quarters and the current fiscal year change in the days ahead. The current consensus EPS estimate is $0.24 on $680.45 million in revenues for the coming quarter and $0.46 on $2.81 billion in revenues for the current fiscal year. Investors should be mindful of the fact that the outlook for the industry can have a material impact on the performance of the stock as well. In terms of the Zacks Industry Rank, Gaming is currently in the bottom 24% of the 250 plus Zacks industries. Our research shows that the top 50% of the Zacks-ranked industries outperform the bottom 50% by a factor of more than 2 to 1. Grandstand Limited (GRSD), another stock in the same industry, has yet to report results for the quarter ended June 2026. The results are expected to be released on August 13. This company is expected to post quarterly loss of $0.04 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of -110.8%. The consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days. Grandstand Limited's revenues are expected to be $37.5 million, down 5.3% from the year-ago quarter. Want the latest recommendations from Zacks Investment Research? Today, you can download 7 Best Stocks for the Next 30 Days. Click to get this free report Playtika Holding Corp. (PLTK) : Free Stock Analysis Report Grandstand Limited (GRSD) : Free Stock Analysis Report This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com). Zacks Investment Research

Image source: The Motley Fool. Thursday, May 7, 2026 at 8:30 a.m. ET Chief Executive Officer — Robert Antokol Chief Financial Officer — Tae Lee Robert Antokol: Good morning, and thank you for joining us. This was a great start of the year, and we are seeing momentum across the portfolio. Our largest franchise continue to execute at scale. We have allocated investments toward the highest-return opportunities and DTC continues to grow as a key driver for unit economics. With that context, the headline for me is this Disney Solitaire. What we are seeing is outstanding and it's rare at this scale. This Disney Solitaire has scaled faster than any title in our 15 years history and continues to outperform expectations. Our SuperPlay studio has taken world-class IP, built a strong game economy around it and delivered extremely well. We are investing heavily in user acquisition behind Disney Solitaire and the returns we are seeing support that level of investment. It is some of the best ROI we have seen in the portfolio. This is not a lucky outcome. SuperPlay is now operating at a scale that matters for Playtika, and it is validating the strategy behind the acquisition, investing in the right teams and backing them with the capital and operating discipline to build large, long-lasting franchise that compounds cash flow over time. Disney Solitaire is the latest example of that, and we believe it will not be the last. And it is not only SuperPlay. The core business is executing, and we are seeing quarter-over-quarter stability across the organic portfolio. We are investing behind our winners and stepping back where the return profile is not there. That discipline is showing up in the revenue mix. Each year, more of our revenue comes from long life casual games with broad reach. D2C has become a core part of how we run the business, improving unit economics and supporting more durable cash flow profile. Casual is now 76% of our business, and that transition is largely complete. We are a casual mobile gaming company with a strong social casino business that generates strong cash flow. Our casual franchise are in a leadership position with broader reach and longer runway. And we compete in the categories where scale and winners-take-most dynamics are more pronounced. With SuperPlay serving a growth engine, our portfolio remains anchored in scaled franchise with competitive advantage, while we continue to manage our slot title in a fragmented landscape. And the mix shift doesn't mean we have taken our eye off social casino. We are managing it with a clear goal to maximize lifetime value, stay disciplined on returns and improve stability where we can. On Slotomania, we're encouraged by the start of the year. Last quarter, we told you to expect quarter-over-quarter improvement in Q1, and we delivered it. Slotomania grew 4% quarter-over-quarter in the first quarter. This is a mature competitive category, and we are not making a forward promise of continued growth from here. Flattening the decline and showing early stability is an important milestone, and it matters for the overall durability of the portfolio. On D2C, we have grown close to $1.2 billion annual run rate. Few companies in mobile gaming operate at our scale. And it matters beyond the margin benefit when you own the transaction, you improve unit economics and gain more direct tools to engage and serve players over time, which supports durability. Every quarter, we become more central to how we operate. Our results give me confidence. SuperPlay is scaling, D2C is compounding, and this portfolio is in better shape and a stronger direction. We are executing with discipline. Tae will take you through the details. Thank you. Tae Lee: Thank you, Robert, and good morning. I'm going to start with the financial highlights for the quarter, and then I'll take a step back and walk through the key themes that matter for how to interpret our performance and the business. In the first quarter, we delivered total revenue of $744.7 million, up 9.7% sequentially and 5.5% year-over-year. Adjusted EBITDA was $125.2 million, representing a margin of 16.8% Importantly, the core business, excluding SuperPlay, continues to generate meaningful adjusted EBITDA and cash flow, and the consolidated margins reflect the planned investment cadence at SuperPlay. We expect SuperPlay to start driving positive adjusted EBITDA in Q2. Net loss was negative $57.5 million and adjusted net income was $13.6 million. Our adjusted net income excludes the GAAP impact of incremental contingent consideration, which increased this quarter as SuperPlay is tracking ahead of the performance assumptions underlying our last reported results. Our DTC business set another record in the first quarter. We delivered DTC revenue of $291.8 million, up 16.7% sequentially and 62.8% year-over-year. The headline is simple. SuperPlay is scaling and the core is generating meaningful adjusted EBITDA and cash flow. With that context, there are three points that matter for how to think about our results in the business. First, the core is durable, and we're focused on games at scale. In mobile gaming, the portfolio naturally concentrates around the titles with scale and community, and that shows up in our market position. Across our largest franchises, we hold the #1 or top 3 position in multiple core categories, and that's the backbone of our strategy, focusing capital on games that can be winners in their respective genres. In tabletop games, we occupy all 3 top positions with Disney Solitaire, Solitaire Grand Harvest and Domino Dreams. Within solitaire specifically, Disney Solitaire and Solitaire Grand Harvest together represent category-leading scale, giving us a leading position in the sub-genre. Across our casual franchises, we hold leadership positions in large, enduring categories. June's Journey is the #1 title in hidden object. Bingo Blitz is the #1 bingo game and Dice Dreams is a top-3 coin looter game. In poker, WSOP is the #1 poker title. Slotomania remains a core legacy title, providing scale and stability as we focus incremental capital on titles with winners-take-most dynamic. Second, Q1 margins reflect SuperPlay investment cadence, not structural pressure. Our in-app purchase business model is well established and repeatable. We acquire players, convert them to payers and scale live games supported by a durable community. When that community is in place, these titles generate cash over a long period of time. And that's the playbook we've successfully repeated for 15 years. SuperPlay is in a rapidly scaling phase, and our marketing spend is intentionally weighted toward the first half of the year. As a result, the near-term margin and consolidated adjusted EBITDA in Q1 reflects timing, not the long-term earnings and cash flow potential of the studio. Third, AI is a tailwind for scaled operators. Investors have asked whether AI changes the competitive dynamics in mobile gaming. Our view is that it's a tailwind. Content creation has never been the barrier to entry in our industry. The hard part has always been building and operating a live game at scale. Live ops cadence, retention and monetization system and the communities that keep players engaged over time, AI is helping accelerate how we build and run those systems. If targeting and optimization improve, companies with scale, data and operating discipline should benefit, but it doesn't change the fundamentals. You still need product market fit and you still need to allocate user acquisition dollars. AI will let strong operators do more with the same or fewer resources, and we intend to be one of them. Now let's turn to the portfolio, starting with performance in our top 3 revenue titles for the quarter, Bingo Blitz, Disney Solitaire and June's Journey. Bingo Blitz delivered $153.7 million of revenue this quarter, down 3% sequentially and 5.4% year-over-year. Importantly, we believe this does not reflect a change in the underlying strength of the franchise. Bingo Blitz remains the #1 Bingo title worldwide across iOS and Google Play and continues to operate as a category leader in a winner-take-most market. While the quarter reflected a slower start to the year, the underlying economics remain resilient due to the strong growth of Bingo Blitz's DTC business. As we've noted before, DTC is a meaningful lever for Bingo's economics, and that mix shift continues to support the financial profile of the franchise. Disney Solitaire generated $123.3 million in revenue, up 72.1% sequentially. The key takeaway is the speed and consistency of that scale. Disney Solitaire is growing faster than any title in our history. The combination of a proven scaling engine and Disney's brand reach expands the top of the funnel meaningfully. Based on what we're seeing today, we believe the franchise still has room to grow from here. June's Journey delivered $76.0 million in revenue, up 8.7% sequentially and 10.4% year-over-year. It was the best quarter for the studio since Q2 of 2024. More importantly, this is a clear category winner. The leadership matters because it gives the franchise room to keep monetizing, not just sustaining as we keep tightening live ops and expanding mix levers like DTC where appropriate. And that's why we're excited about the runway. We see June's Journey as a title that can become a $1 million a day game over time, given its leadership position, durability and the monetization potential that still sits in this franchise. Let's turn to specific line items in our P&L. Cost of revenue was $192.2 million, down 2.6% year-over-year. Lower platform fees from the continued growth of our DTC business provided a benefit, which was partially offset by royalty expenses. R&D was $98 million, down 5.6% year-over-year, driven by lower head count and reduced outsourcing spend as we streamlined our cost structure, partially offset by severance related to workforce reduction. Sales and marketing was $360.6 million, up 32.7% year-over-year, driven primarily by incremental performance marketing spend for our SuperPlay games. As we move through the year, we expect spending to normalize from the Q1 peak and step down sequentially, consistent with the cadence we discussed in prior periods. G&A was $143.5 million, up 120.1% year-over-year, driven primarily by the GAAP impact of incremental contingent consideration. Excluding that item, G&A would have been $48.5 million, reflecting lower share-based compensation versus the comparable period. As a reminder, contingent consideration expense from this past quarter is a noncash fair value adjustment that runs through GAAP results. It can fluctuate from quarter-to-quarter and is excluded from adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income. Average daily paying users reached 387,000, up 8.4% sequentially and down 0.8% year-over-year. Average daily active users reached 8.6 million, up 8.9% sequentially and down 4.4% year-over-year. Monthly active users totaled 30.1 million, underscoring the scale of our global player community. ARPDAU increased 1.1% sequentially and 8% year-over-year. Turning to the balance sheet. As of March 31, we had approximately $779.2 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments. Since then, we paid $461 million to the former shareholders of SuperPlay as an earn-out payment. We remain focused on maximizing cash flow and preserving liquidity, and we've taken actions to prioritize balance sheet flexibility, including suspending our quarterly dividend. From here, we are actively evaluating options to further strengthen our capital structure and extend our maturity runway. Addressing our maturity profile and ensuring ample liquidity is a top priority for management, and we're working deliberately towards the best long-term solution. Finally, guidance. We're raising our revenue outlook for the year from $2.7 billion to $2.8 billion to $2.75 billion to $2.85 billion. SuperPlay is performing ahead of plan, and we're also seeing better-than-expected performance in the core portfolio. On adjusted EBITDA, we're raising our adjusted EBITDA range from $730 million to $770 million to $750 million to $790 million. At the same time, we want to be clear about how we're managing this. We're not optimizing the business to harvest near-term adjusted EBITDA at the expense of long-term value. We're managing performance carefully and intentionally to preserve the option to reinvest incremental dollars in the business in the second half, whether that's user acquisition or R&D, while still maintaining discipline on margins and cash generation. Said differently, our updated guidance ranges reflect strong execution, but they also reflect a deliberate choice to keep flexibility. If the opportunities are there, we want the ability to press our advantage and invest rather than lock ourselves into a single maximize EBITDA path. We entered 2026 with momentum in the business, and the first quarter gave us more reasons for conviction. We'd be happy to take your questions. Operator: [Operator Instructions] Our first question for today comes from the line of Chris Schoell from UBS. Christopher Schoell: Given the front-end loaded investment you flagged for the year, how are you thinking about the ability to retain users and sustain monetization as sales and marketing steps down in the coming quarters? And congrats, Tae, on the new role. Any updated thoughts you can give around your capital allocation priorities and how you plan to balance investment with lowering leverage, M&A and/or buybacks here in the near term? Tae Lee: Yes. Thanks for the question, Chris. So on sales and marketing, as you know, Q1 is normally our highest UA quarter even without SuperPlay. And this year, that normal seasonality was amplified by the opportunity that we saw in SuperPlay. So going into the year, what the studio planned to spend versus what we ended up spending, we leaned in because the return profile supported it. So when we talk about the return profile, we're talking about there -- with the increase in sales and marketing on a sequential basis, there was little degradation in the returns associated with that spend. And so we leaned into the marketing investment for the quarter. However, we shouldn't view Q1 as a run rate for the year. I think from here, the expectation is that we do intend to have a meaningful step down in spend as we move through. And again, the important point is that it's not about pulling back because the opportunity is weakening. It's about moving from a concentrated launch and scale phase toward a more normalized cadence while continuing to invest where returns justify it. Now with that said, as we think about the broader performance of -- again, if you think about where that spend was really concentrated in the quarter, a lot of it went to Disney Solitaire. And it's important to highlight that not only was the revenue outperformance due to the returns and the amplified spend, but the performance of the cohorts from last year. So the cohorts of players in Disney Solitaire that started playing in Q3 and Q4, as they went through the cycle and as we looked at day 180 and day 240 returns, the performance improved over time. And so that gives us confidence in the outlook that we'll be able to sustain the revenue levels even as we pull back on some of that UA spend. Your question on capital allocation. I mean, capital allocation is certainly top of mind for us and in terms of order of priority, we think about obviously investing in sort of the core business, including the SuperPlay assets. But as you heard from us last quarter, part of the philosophy and the thinking currently is that we want to maintain sort of maximum liquidity. We do recognize that after the year 1 earn-out, you saw in our filings that the contingent consideration value for SuperPlay went up, basically, as we talked about in our prepared remarks, that's due to the fact that the business is outperforming expectations. And so we want to make sure that we're maximizing liquidity to ensure that we're funding of all earn-outs using the cash that we generate. And so in terms of capital return, I would say that is not a priority at the moment. In terms of M&A, again, you've heard us now say multiple times, when we acquired SuperPlay, we acquired the crown jewel of independent studios that were out there. And now it's a significant growth driver for the business. We've gone 3 for 3 with Dice, Domino and Disney. And as you know, we have another Disney game in the pipeline. So the focus is on reinvesting in that growth engine. Christopher Schoell: And if I could just follow up on the SuperPlay earn-outs. Can you just remind us the timing and the amount of the cash payment this year? And along those lines, any color you can just give on the growth across the portfolio for SuperPlay in 1Q? It would just be helpful as we think about modeling the earn-outs beyond '26. Tae Lee: Yes. So we made the payment last month. So you don't see it reflected in our Q1 balance sheet since it's as of month-end March, but the payment went out last month. And so the way the agreement is structured, any incremental earn-outs that the studio earns, the earn-out gets paid in the second quarter of the following year. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Aaron Lee from Macquarie. Aaron Lee: Congrats, Tae, on the new role. I wanted to ask about the social casino business. Nice to see the comments on Slotomania. So with regard to competitive pressure from sweepstakes casinos, we've seen a number of states kind of pass legislation banning the category and more states floating legislation to do the same. Wondering if you can comment on whether there's been any relief in competitive pressure that you can see for the category? Robert Antokol: Thanks for the question. Again, when we're looking at the category of social casino, yes, we had last year some toughness of growing the business and our revenues, well, decreased. But our goal was always to stabilize the business. And I think when you look at the result of Slotomania this quarter, and I said it in the last conversation 3 months ago that we're going to grow this quarter. So this quarter, we grew 4%. And when I look in the future of our business, it's going to be stabilized, it's going to be a strong cash flow to the company. And I cannot react on the competitors or legal or illegal, it's not related to me, but it's related to me that I know I'm still leading the category and I'm growing there and I'm stabilizing the business. Thank you. Aaron Lee: Got it. Okay. And then on direct-to-consumer, another record quarter of D2C here, nice job on that. You guys have always been the leader here, and I'm sure the App Store policy shifts are probably helping. But is there something incremental you've learned about the D2C platform that is unlocking this penetration? And how would you characterize the opportunity from here? Robert Antokol: So D2C was always one of our growth engine to be a profitable, strong cash flow company. And we were the first one and the leaders in this business. Right now, today, we still believe growing D2C. I think the changes that we see on the platform is giving us some edge. But for us, we are focusing at what we can do in our ability. It's not only cash flow, it's not only better profit. It's giving us a lot of independency to work with the games, to check games, to do Q&A, to do things that we cannot do on other platforms. So for us, D2C was always one of our main benefits. And you see the numbers. We are growing and growing and growing. And we still don't know where it's going to stop. Tae Lee: Yes. And Aaron, just to add to Robert's point, our DTC business is also pretty diversified. And as you noted, the changes in the App Store policies certainly is helping as a tailwind. But I think the way we thought about it as a company, once that opportunity became available, I think it's important to note that we didn't think about it as sort of a single-game opportunity, but made sure that we were tactically taking advantage of the situation across all of our games. And so it's not -- historically, you've heard us talk about pushing DTC as an opportunity at the right time depending on where that game is in its life cycle. What we've seen in the last couple of quarters is that we have the DTC option available across all the games in our portfolio, including our SuperPlay games. And so you have the overall number of DTC, as Robert talked about, run-rating at $1.2 billion a year. One of the biggest drivers of growth year-over-year comes from Bingo Blitz, which is our #1 game, and it continues to grow the DTC business. And so again, I think it's important to note that we saw the opportunity, and we really took advantage of the situation to grow our business that way. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Colin Sebastian from Baird. Colin Sebastian: I have two questions. Maybe first, Robert, can you talk more about the stability or durability you cited across the organic portfolio? Obviously, June's Journey is one that you called out doing really well. But more broadly, do you think the organic portfolio in aggregate can return to growth this year? And then I have a follow-up maybe for Tae. With the shift away from UA spend for Disney Solitaire, does that give you an opportunity to shift more resources over to the organic titles? Or is it really just more of a shift towards retention over acquisition for the balance of the year? Robert Antokol: Thanks for the question. I will take the first one. We always looked at our games. We had last year the issue with Slotomania. And I always said that we had 10 games, 8 games, 9 games, and sometimes we have issues with 1 game. But overall, we are positive. And I think when you look at this year and we look what we did in the last 6 months, we changed many things in a few of our games. We stabilize. We are working to stabilize all the category of social casino and the organic games that -- last year, June's Journey performed -- their performance wasn't amazing. You see a huge change this year because we decided to take the approach to focus the [indiscernible] games. This is the main game that we are focusing. This is the game that we believe can take the organic portfolio to grow, and we still believe in it. And we show the market. It was always -- everybody was very [ optimistic ] about us saying, okay, Slotomania is going down, what is going to happen? No, we showed the market that we know how to stop it. We know how to change. We know how to improve and look at our portfolio. We have an amazing, amazing time in Playtika right now in the organic category. Tae? Tae Lee: Yes. Colin, I think just to add to that, too, I think the better way to think about our portfolio is not just SuperPlay and then the rest of the business, right? We've talked about how we approach capital allocation. And so separating the portfolio into areas where we're choosing to prioritize capital and resources versus the parts of the business that we're managing primarily for value, cash generation as well as games that you've heard us say that we're deprioritizing. You have the numbers for SuperPlay in 2025. And so if you isolate it, you kind of get at the rest of the business year-over-year change in revenue. But again, I think it's important to note that you have to think about the category outside of SuperPlay being modestly better sequentially, although still down year-over-year, with most of that year-over-year pressure tied to Bingo's slower start to the year that we spoke about. But again, offset by the fact that DTC in Bingo really accelerated in Q1, holding sort of the economics stable. If you look at Poker, Poker was broadly stable. You saw pressure in slots. The year-over-year comps are hard in slots, but it will get easier over time given the trajectory that Slotomania went through last year. But the trajectory in slots was more stable sequentially. And then, of course, the deprioritized part of the portfolio is now relatively small and continues to decline as expected. So the honest sort of answer is, yes, the business, if you just exclude SuperPlay, is still down year-over-year, but that's not the full story. What matters is we're seeing signs of stabilization in parts of the portfolio where we're allocating capital with intent, particularly in scaled casual and core cash-generating assets. That's why in our prepared remarks, we wanted to sort of remind people of the scale and leadership position that we have across many of these games because this is exactly how we want to manage the business. That's the strategy that we've been implementing the last couple of years. And I think this quarter really shows that the results are coming through in the numbers clearly. So improved mix over time, healthier base of revenue, more revenue coming from casual assets with broader reach and longer useful life. And again, direct investment toward the highest-return franchises and making sure that we're preserving cash generation from the older sort of legacy social casino games. On the point about UA away from Disney Solitaire, listen, if we think about the portfolio as a whole. So there's opportunities where, like I mentioned, there was no degradation in the return profile. You see meaningful continued growth coming from the older cohorts in Disney Solitaire that were acquired in the second half of last year, continuing to perform well in Q1 because of, again, our business is road map based, right? So after the upfront UA period, what drives growth is retention, monetization, live ops execution and the ability to keep cohorts productive over time. And that's what we've done consistently well over the last 15 years. Now in terms of just the pace of the spend, I think you're going to see that the marketing spend outside of the SuperPlay games, that will kind of follow our more typical cadence of how we've tended to spend UA over the course of the year. But sort of on a consolidated basis, you will see that significant step down from Q1 to Q2 and then to the second half of the year. Operator: And our next question comes from the line of Doug Creutz from TD Cowen. Douglas Creutz: You talked about how good the KPIs are for Disney Solitaire. And clearly, that gave you a lot of confidence to invest in it in Q1. Can you talk about tactically why you think it's advantageous to load so much of your UA spend for the game into Q1 rather than spreading it more evenly across the year? Is there something about the dynamics of the market in Q1 that make it so? Is it about the cadence of content for the game? Can you kind of go into why you feel like it's better to have so much of your marketing spend early in the year? Tae Lee: Yes, Doug, thanks for the question. So for us, because we're in-app purchase based, right, you always have to think about the marketing spend or campaign alongside sort of product innovation and things in the road map. But I want to kind of go back to what I mentioned on one of the prior questions where going into the year, it was always the plan that it would be front-loaded. It was always the plan that it would be in Q1 because we wanted to -- because -- again, because of the payback that we saw in Q4 and payback literally just [ in, ] if you spend it and how quickly you make it back and then the strength of the cohort is after you made it all back, what you continue to gain. The important thing to note is even with the sequential step-up in marketing that we saw from Q4 to Q1 that there was a little degradation in the return profile. So then with that opportunity, we increased or accelerated the spend further. So that's what you're seeing in sort of the consolidated number and why you have the revenue performance being where it's at and the impact on adjusted EBITDA. Operator: Thank you. This does conclude the question-and-answer session as well as today's program. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your participation. You may now disconnect. Good day. Before you buy stock in Playtika, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Playtika wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $463,900!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,294,401!* Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 978% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 211% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 1, 2026. This article is a transcript of this conference call produced for The Motley Fool. While we strive for our Foolish Best, there may be errors, omissions, or inaccuracies in this transcript. As with all our articles, The Motley Fool does not assume any responsibility for your use of this content, and we strongly encourage you to do your own research, including listening to the call yourself and reading the company's SEC filings. Please see our Terms and Conditions for additional details, including our Obligatory Capitalized Disclaimers of Liability. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Playtika (PLTK) Q1 2026 Earnings Transcript was originally published by The Motley Fool