Welcome to the PULLUP Entertainment Q1 and 2025-2026 revenue conference call. For the first part of the conference call, the participants will be in listen-only mode. During the questions- and- answers session, participants are able to ask questions by raising their hand or through the chat. Now, I will hand the conference over to Geoffroy Sardin, CEO, and Aurélien Briand , CFO. Please go ahead.
Hello everyone. We are starting the year on a very solid note as we continue to benefit from the strong dynamic initiated last year. Our record Q1 revenue was well above our prior best performance that we have achieved in the first quarter of fiscal 2021. This was at the time of lockdown, which had generated exceptional player engagement levels and was a quarter with three releases, including the highly successful SnowRunner. This remarkable performance is broad-based. Our back catalog, strong growth, is of course benefiting from Space Marine 2 momentum, but also from the depth of our portfolio of existing titles. Our teams are really expert in maximizing the value from those titles and extending their life cycle over many years. We believe we can generate in the future even more value from our back catalog and grow recurring revenues.
We are indeed increasingly mastering live management best practices and, as demonstrated by successful live operations of Dovetail or with SnowRunner and Space Marine 2. On the new release side, as mentioned in June, RoadCraft is significantly outperforming our initial expectations and is now on track to deliver over EUR 50 million revenue over its lifetime. I cannot stress enough how the current setup of the market, with still plenty of new games offering and a more challenging macro environment, is an opportunity for PULLUP Entertainment to differentiate itself. Our games are indeed targeting the most passionate and engaged players, and this is a very resilient audience. We are delivering exceptional value to them with experiences that are unique and highly targeted and at the right price. This great positioning is confirmed by our repeated successes from Space Marine 2 to Transient World, Drova, Void Crew, and now RoadCraft.
Likewise, recent players' response to our game demos is impressive. Absolom, Abyssus, and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound, all three titles from Dotemu, as well as Memories in Orbit, our own IP published by Focus, were all ranked among the 50 most played demos at the recent Steam Next Fest event. They faced competition from over 2,000 games, and player reviews are promising within a range of 85%- 93% positive ratings. With such a strong start of the year and supportive trends for our upcoming titles, we confirm our targets for fiscal year 2026 and for the next two fiscal years. Today, we also announced that the Board of Directors, which met yesterday, decided to propose to the next annual general meeting the payment of a dividend of EUR 1 per share.
This reflects the solid operating cash flows delivered last year and the first benefits from the transformation strategy enacted by PULLUP Entertainment since the arrival of Neology as a reference shareholder in 2020. We continue to apply an agile capital allocation strategy, and this remuneration would come in addition to the recent share buybacks, which have represented 4.1% of total capital since last December. I now hand over the call to Aurélien.
Thank you, Geoffroy, and hello everybody. In Q1, revenue reached EUR 79 million, up 132% year on year, and well above our higher record of EUR 64 million achieved in Q1 fiscal 2021. New releases revenue of EUR 19 million is mostly driven by the better than initially anticipated release of RoadCraft. We also launched Drop Duc hy during this quarter. As a reminder, last year had not seen any meaningful release. On the back catalog side, momentum was strong. Revenue reached EUR 58 million, up 91% year on year. It was our biggest ever quarterly performance for our back catalog business. This reflects Space Marine 2's great success, as well as the depth of our portfolio. We were notably pleased with Transient World, Drova, SnowRunner, and Void Crew.
As mentioned during our full-year earnings communication, back catalog saw a EUR 19 million impact from deferred revenue as we shipped during the quarter additional contents, including Space Marine 2 Season Pass. Impressively, at EUR 39 million, excluding this deferred revenue, this would still have been our biggest ever quarterly performance for our back catalog. As Geoffroy said, on the back of such a strong start of the year and excellent dynamic for our upcoming titles, we have confirmed our targets, namely fiscal 2026 top line and adjusted EBIT above FY2023 levels, which was our prior normalized record year performance, and adjusted EBIT growth for both fiscal year 2027 and fiscal year 2028. Regarding our second quarter, Dotemu will release Ninja Gaiden: RageBound and Abyssus. Other yet to be announced titles will also be released during the quarter, and we expect another solid performance from our back catalog.
We are now ready to answer your questions.
If you wish to ask a question, please raise your hand via the blue button or submit a question through the chat. The next question comes from Aurélien Sivignon from ODDO BHF. Please unmute your microphone.
As we wait for Aurélien, there is a question asked in return. Hello, and congrats for this Q1. Do you still have significant deferred revenue to book in the coming quarters?
No, we don't have any more deferred revenue to be released over the next quarters. As the very last paid content of the Season Pass, the Year One Season Pass of Space Marine 2, has been delivered at the very end of June, nothing to comment on that front in the coming quarters.
We're still waiting for Aurélien. We have a question on Memories in Orbit. Was there any MRO feedback from the Steam Next Fest?
Thank you for this question. Memories in Orbit, I repeat, our own IP published by Focus, were really well ranked among the top 50 out of more than 2,000 games in demos during the Steam Next
Fest. It was an event released and planned last June. This demo received highly positive ratings, much more than 88%. It's right on track. We are really pleased with all the reviews and feedback. We will announce quite soon when it will be released during this fiscal year.
Do we know if Aurélien ...
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please raise your hand via the blue button or submit a question through the chat.
We have another question from the chat. Congratulations on the Q1 performance. Do you still expect to buy back shares following the dividend announcement?
We still have the possibility to do so. As usual, we will assess that in the coming days and weeks, but we can continue to do so. We still have the possibility. Yes.
Okay, another question. Can you tell us when the financial report for last year will be released?
It will be released in the coming days. We will do that before the end of the month of July. It will come very soon.
Can you give us an update on Scripting?
Yes, indeed. Scripting, for those who are not familiar with these departments, they are experts in audiovisual production. One of their goals, in fact, is to work on our own IP in a transmedia genre. That is to say, to produce and to co-produce series or movies on a particular own IP. We are working quite closely with some platforms, and we've got a deep discussion with some platforms to adapt our own IP up like hell right now. This is discussion, only discussion, but quite in a deep, you know, in a deep way. Yes, Scripting is either on the way. In fact, it's working quite heavily on this kind of topic using, you know, our own IP catalog.
Another question from the chat. On top of adjusted EBIT guidance for fiscal year 2026 and 2027, have you provided sales forecasts for those years?
What we say is that FY2026 and 2027 will be above our prior record of FY2023, which was EUR 194 million. We said last time that for FY2026, we will be above the consensus at this time, which was EUR 253 million for FY2026.
Okay, another question from the chat. A clarification maybe on the deferred revenue. We addressed it earlier, but just in case, you mentioned EUR 19 million of revenue linked to the back catalog. Should we understand that these revenues are only related to Space Marine 2? This is the first question. Is it a fair amount for the next few quarters?
Yes, the EUR 19 million I mentioned are fully linked to Space Marine 2. This is related to the content that has been released during this very intense Q1 quarter on Space Marine 2 in terms of content. The deferred revenue on the first year of Space Marine 2 is now over. There is no more deferred revenue. The next quarter will see further content over Space Marine 2. We will see by the end of the year if we have deferred revenue. For the time being, as part of the year one, we are all done. Nothing more to come, sorry.
We have a very active chat. Should we expect new announcements in the coming weeks? For example, at Gamescom and around Toxic Commando, or are most of the games of the coming months already disclosed?
Thank you for your question. As we know, and yes, you know by heart that Gamescom is a nice place, in fact, to set up some key bits of communication with nice execution. You could expect to get more information during Gamescom with announcements. You have to be a little bit patient, a few weeks to wait. Gamescom is something important for the industry and especially for our portfolio.
We have a question regarding, can you tell us how many shares are owned now and if there is a plan to cancel them or to keep them in hands for acquisition or stock-based compensation?
Yeah, as of today, we held 7.6% of our shares. Our capital is EUR 8.5 million shares. We have 7.6% of that. For the time being, the plan is not to cancel those shares. Yes, it's more to be reactive for any M&A opportunities or for stock-based compensation.
We have no more questions from the chat. I don't know if there is any question from the live part. Maybe we'll find Aurélien. Aurélien has a question.
Okay, we got a question from our...
There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thanks very much to all the participants of this call. We wish you a very pleasant evening. Thank you very much.