Hello, and welcome to Deezer's 2026 half-year results presentation. Please note this conference is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen-only mode. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by raising your hand inside the webcast player. You can also submit written questions through the box under the player. I will now turn it over to your host, Alexis Lanternier, Deezer's CEO, to begin today's conference. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Deezer H1 2026 results conference call. Moving on to slide three. Today, Carl and I will present Deezer H1 2026 result. I will start with the key highlights of the year, and Carl will then go into more details on our half-year performance. After that, we will discuss our 2026 outlook. At the end of our presentation, we will answer your questions. Moving on to slide four. The first half of 2026 marks another important step in Deezer's transformation. We're delivering sustained direct growth, strengthening our competitive differentiation, and demonstrating that profitability is becoming structural. Revenue came in at EUR 268 million in H1, up 0.4% year-over-year, in line with our plan. This performance was driven by the continued strength of our direct business.
Direct revenue grew 6.7% year-over-year, supported by subscriber growth both in France and in the rest of the world. Our direct subscriber base reached 5.8 million, up 8.7% year-over-year, with France growing 8.4% and the rest of the world growing 9.2%. In partnerships, revenue stabilized sequentially in Q2 after several quarters of decline. This is an encouraging signal as new commercial initiatives ramp up and the impact from ended partnerships progressively fades. Profitability also continued to improve. Adjusted EBITDA reached EUR 8.5 million in H1 2026, compared to EUR 2.1 million in H1 2025, representing a EUR 6.4 million improvement year-over-year. This reflects strict cost control, continued marketing discipline, while our adjusted gross margin remained at a high level. We also delivered positive net income of EUR 6.7 million, compared to a loss of EUR 7.6 million in H1 2025.
This showed that Deezer is becoming structurally profitable, reflecting the strengths of its operating model and disciplined execution. Finally, we generated positive free cash flow and ended June with a strong cash position of approximately EUR 100 million. This gives us the flexibility to continue investing selectively in future growth while maintaining financial discipline. Let's now spend a few minutes discussing the key business highlight of the year, moving on to slide six. In H1, we continued to innovate to support artists, music lovers, and their ability to connect. This is directly supporting our direct subscriber momentum. On one side, we continue to invest in our AI detection technology as a threshold of 90,000 AI-generated tracks per day has been crossed, representing more than 50% of the total daily deliveries. We believe this confirms the importance of our proactive approach to protecting users, artists, and the music ecosystem.
Second, we continued to give music lovers more control over their listening experience through Flow Tuner. Flow Tuner allows users to fine-tune their recommendations in real time through genre and subgenre. The idea is simple. Recommendations should not be a black box. Users should be able to shape their flow, adjusting it to their mood and discover more music in a more transparent and user-led way. Third, we launched Remix Lab in France, directly integrated into Deezer Club. This is a world-first in-app remixing experience that puts fans at the center of the music experience. Users can reimagine tracks from participating artists with prior artist approval, full rights compliance, and artist compensation built in. Remix Lab includes tracks from major participating artists such as Céline Dion, Tiakola, and Orelsan, making the feature both highly visible and culturally relevant.
Importantly, streams generated by remix versions are attributed to the original work, and artists, as a result, are compensated. Together, these innovations strengthen user engagement, reinforce Deezer's differentiation, and support long-term subscriber growth. On the B2B side, we revamped our partnership offering under Deezer for Business, a more unified platform bringing together our existing and emerging B2B solutions. This is an important step in the evolution of our partnership strategy. For more than 15 years, Deezer has helped brands use music to create differentiation, drive engagement, and build stronger customer relationships. With Deezer for Business, we are making this offering more structured and more scalable across multiple use cases. The platform is built around five growth engines. First, Deezer for Partners, which integrates Deezer into consumer offers through bundle and distribution partnerships.
Second, Deezer Music as a Service, which provides our licensed catalog and streaming technology for a white label music experience. Third, Deezer for Advertisers, our premium audio advertising solution across Deezer and partner audio environments. Fourth, Deezer for Professionals, a turnkey music and audio solution for commercial spaces. Fifth, Deezer AI Detection, which makes our proprietary AI music detection technology available to the broader music ecosystem. Together, these solutions are powered by Deezer Core's asset, a premium licensed catalog, scalable streaming technology, proprietary AI detection, and more than 15 years of industry expertise. Our objective is to leverage these assets to move beyond standard distribution and progressively build a broader B2B music platform with multiple revenue streams. Moving on to the next slide. In the first half, we also saw encouraging momentum across partnership. This was supported by continued execution on distribution partnership.
We renewed strategic agreement with partners such as TIM, Itaú in Brazil, and signed new deal with partner including KPN in Netherlands, m:tel, Virgin Media O2, and Omnicom. These renewals and new signing confirm the resilience of our distribution model and the relevance of Deezer as a partner for consumer brands and platform. At the same time, we continue to expand beyond standard distribution through new music services. In music as a service, we renewed our existing relationship with Sonos and signed new partners such as Winamp. Under this partnership, Deezer will provide its white label music streaming technology and global music catalog, enabling Winamp to launch its own premium subscription offering as a native experience. This is a strong opportunity as more than 40 million people currently use Winamp desktop MP3 player.
In H1, we also continued to expand our new offering, Deezer for Professionals, providing fully licensed music solution to commercial space and brands. We signed new partners, among which Côté Sushi, Cash Converters, BuyMyCar, or Avril. Finally, in AI detection, we signed new agreement with rights organization, including EJI and Buma/Stemra, in addition to our work with SACEM. This confirmed the commercial relevance of our proprietary AI detection technology, while supporting our broader commitment to transparency and fair remuneration in the music ecosystem. Overall, this shows the two dimension of our B2B strategy are working, maintaining momentum in distribution partnerships while expanding new revenue streams through music service and technology licensing. This concludes the section on business highlights, and now I will hand it over to Carl for the finance section.
Thank you, Alexis, and good morning, everyone. Let's discuss our H1 results and move to slide 10. Our subscriber base amounted to 8.9 million at the end of H1. In this slide, we can see two separate trends. First, the continued positive momentum in direct, which is up 8.7% year-over-year. Direct performance continues to be driven by steady subscriber growth in France, which reached 8.4% growth to 3.9 million subscribers. Rest of the world sustained momentum, reaching 1.9 million subscribers, which is 9.2% growth, reflecting the success of our strategy. On the right hand of this page, the anticipated decline in partnership subscribers due to the residual headwinds as the Meli+ deal is still phasing out.
Turning to ARPU, we can see several mixed effects as ARPU in partnerships improved by 19% year-over-year due to our mix of deals and the positive results of our new strategy. While direct ARPU slightly decreased 2.1% year-over-year on the back of the success of our family offers. Moving on to slide 11. In H1 2026, we reported revenue of €268 million, slightly increasing by 0.4%, in line with our expectations. If we look at the segment breakdown on the left-hand side of the slides, direct revenue grew 6.7%, reflecting the continued growth of our subscriber base in France, offsetting the decline in the other two segments. As anticipated, partnership declined by 7.6% as Mercado Libre headwinds are phasing out. That being said, we saw stabilization in Q2 revenue and excluding Mercado Libre, the segment returned to growth.
Other revenues declined by EUR 5 million in H1 and came to EUR 12 million due to the termination of a content licensing deal in 2025. Now turning to the geographic view on the right-hand side. In France, revenue increased by 4.3% year-over-year, supported by the solid momentum in direct subscribers. In the rest of the world, revenue declined by - 5.4%, largely due to the Meli+ impact and the aforementioned content licensing agreement. This was partially offset by the gradual ramp-up of other partnerships. Moving on to slide 12. Adjusted gross profit amounted to EUR 66 million in 2025, a slight increase of 0.4% compared to H1 2025, benefiting from B2C and partnership growth profit growth, as well as optimization of terms that offset the decline in the other segment. Our adjusted gross profit margin is stable at 24.5% at the end of H1.
Direct adjusted gross profit margin came at 26.7%, up 1.2 points. Partnerships adjusted gross profit margin was at 22.6%, up 2.8 points. It benefited from better mix. Moving on to slide 13. During H1, we maintained strong cost discipline, reducing operating expense by EUR 6 million year-over-year. Discussed efficiency is structural and had a direct positive impact on the sharp improvement of our profitability over the period. Marketing and trial spends decreased by EUR 2 million, reflecting some optimization, including a greater focus on digital spend, but also a phasing effect, which we expect to reverse in H2. As a result, marketing expense represented 6.5% of revenue, compared to 7.1% in H1 2025. In parallel, staff and G&A expenses were reduced by EUR 5 million, now accounting for 14.9% of revenue, compared to 16.6% in H1 2025.
Moving on to slide 14, our adjusted EBITDA improved by EUR 6.4 million, reaching EUR 8.5 million in H1 2026 as compared to EUR 2.1 million in H1 2025. Looking at the bridge on this slide, the key drivers behind this performance were the continued cost discipline, with EUR 6 million in operating expense reduction over the period, while maintaining our adjusted gross profit at the same level as last year, despite the loss of a very profitable content licensing deal in 2025. Importantly, this reflects operating leverage in the business rather than temporary cost actions. Turning to our cash position. At the end of H1 2026, we delivered a strong cash position of EUR 100 million compared to EUR 65 million in December 2025.
Looking at the bridge, this performance reflects both the positive contribution from adjusted EBITDA at EUR 8 million and a change in working capital, EUR 31 million, including a significant one-off payment from a partnership deal. Excluding this effect, our cash position remains very robust and above full year 2025. Our net cash position amounts to EUR 95 million after repayment of EUR 3 million of the French state guaranteed loan during the period. This solid liquidity position gives us the flexibility to accelerate our selective investment in H2 to drive future growth. I will now let Alexis conclude on the 2026 outlook.
Thank you, Carl. Moving on to slide 17. Looking ahead to fiscal year 2026, we confirm our financial targets. We continue to expect fiscal year 2026 revenue to be in line with fiscal year 2025. This reflects our expectation of continued growth of our direct business, while partnership are expected to progressively improve sequentially as the Mercado Libre headwind fades and new commercial initiative ramps up. In the second half, we'll increase selective investment to support future growth, especially in areas where we see clear return potential. These investments will remain disciplined and ROI-driven, as we confirm our positive adjusted EBITDA target for the year. We expect positive free cash flow for the third consecutive year. Our strong cash position at the end of June gives us the flexibility to invest while preserving financial discipline.
-overall, our priorities remain clear, continue to strengthen digital differentiation, invest selectively to accelerate sustainable growth, and maintain disciplined capital allocation. This balanced approach will allow us to deliver profitable growth while a positive adjusted EBITDA and free cash flow, while building a structurally stronger business. Thank you for your attention. Camilla will now open the discussion for questions.
If you wish to ask a question verbally, please click the blue hand icon to join the queue. You can also type your question in the box below the video player. We now have a question from Eric Ravary from CIC CIB. The floor is yours.
Can you hear me? Good morning.
Yes.
Yes. Thank you for taking my questions. First one is on the marketing spend. I understand that you didn't launch any significant spend H1, but you are waiting for H2 to move in some selected market. Could you be more specific on the countries that you are targeting? I remember that you were considering Brazil, Germany, and the U.S., it's still the plan. Second question on this strong cut in G&A in H1. Is it sustainable, or is there an exceptional component there? Could you give us here the number of head count at end June compared with end 2025? The last question was on working cap. There is an exceptional component in H1. Are you expecting the working cap to reverse over the second half? Thank you.
Hi, Eric. Thanks for the question. In terms of marketing spend, we always have a little bit of difference between H1 and H2. We invest slightly more in H2 because it's just more favorable to acquire new users. That's the typical phasing we have. It's a bit more pronounced this year as we reduce a bit H1 because we saw last year that it was not as effective as what we can do in H2. In terms of the country we invest in, we are, as you know, very committed to France and Brazil.
What we observe though is that we had a quite significant growth in some other, mostly on the mature market. You mentioned Germany, U.S., U.K. As a result, we restarted to do very selective investment. In the sense that it was mostly a paid acquisition, like bottom of the funnel, basically conversion investment. Overall amount is still very minimal compared to the rest of the marketing spend. It's not planned to become something significant, and it will still be very ROI-driven.
For the two remaining questions on G&A and the exceptional working cap impact. On G&A, I think you're referring to two different things on, does the G&A as part of the IFRS P&L.
Last year, we expensed a significant one-off related to legacy data issue, which was fully resolved in between and therefore had a significant impact on our G&A, positive impact this year, which explains the difference between last year and this year. When we look at the adjusted EBITDA and the way we treated G&A, I think this is the way to look at the structural improvement in our G&A spend year-over-year, which has been improved by more than EUR 2 million, and which actually reflects the trend at which we're able to optimize our business and is sustainable. Back to your question. When it comes to the headcount, our headcount as of Q1 and Q2 are more or less in line with last year. We've optimized and as we said in the past, done significant effort to be more efficient in the way we deliver our objectives.
Now we think we're at the right level, and therefore you shouldn't expect significant reduction in the next few quarters. Coming back to your question on the exceptional working cap. There is naturally some normalization coming following the one-off payment, but we don't see any change in the underlying characteristic of the business. The working cap remains structurally negative, and we continue to expect renewed positive free cash flow for the full year. I think the way to think about it is we've always been able to translate EBITDA generation into free cash flow generation, at the level that is now close to 100%. That gives you a rough estimate of the free cash flow performance excluding that one-off impact.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question verbally, please click the blue hand icon to join the queue. You can also type your question in the box below the video player.
Thank you, Christophe, for your question. I think on AI detection, it's fair to assume that other streaming platform have the skill in-house to develop it. It's an open question. I think obviously, different type of DSP in term of size have different technology. We can assume that the GAFAM, of course, can develop that, if they want. I think that's what we can assume. Did they developed it? We cannot know. They don't communicate on that. Deezer is the only streaming platform that is communicating on what's happening on a regular basis, that is blocking the AI music to enter the recommendation to user, and that is making it transparent on the platform when an artist is significantly AI.
Those two element are driven by the need or the wish to be transparent to user, which we know is a clear demand from our user base and is helping us differentiate Deezer as the true support for the music industry, the artist, and the real music lover. I think that was the first question. Thinking about fan offers, I think that's what we have started to develop, and it's all embedded within the Deezer hub. Our thinking here is that we enable artist to offer exclusive experience to user. We have started with private event, private concert, free ticket. We have done a lot of pre-sales, last-chance sales of concert ticket. Now we are expanding to more digital offers, typically the one we were talking about with ability to remix songs.
This is also part of the interaction between super fan and fan, by the way, offers. That's on the offer we do. I think the challenge is to scale, it's on two sides. It's to one on the scale side, to bring meaningful benefit. We have millions of users participating. We don't have yet millions of benefit to offer them
It's really about the scale. I think the artist and the rights holder are all extremely motivated to do it. Maybe probably the subsequent question is how do we price it? For now, there is no plan to do a super tier, as we don't find that yet. We don't have yet the benefit that justify it will require quite a lot of, obviously, complexity. There is no plan there. It's more about differentiating the brand, continue to position Deezer as the true house for connecting music lovers with artist. Second question, when you said Deezer is only DSP communicating on AI blocking, other DSPs, they're not communicating, we don't know what they do, basically. I think there is one DSP, which is TIDAL, that tried to communicate about what they want to do, which is tagging AI songs. I don't think it has been implemented yet. Bridge between adjusted-
Yes. Christophe's question is bridge between adjusted EBITDA and operating income shows EUR 6 million non-recurring item, positive item. What does it relate to? This is actually, as I explained during my answer to Eric's question, the fact that last year, we booked a provision that related to a legacy data issue that had an impact on G&A. This year, as we've been able to resolve that issue, we've actually reversed that provision. We had a significant positive impact on our operating income.
There are no more questions at this time. I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.
Thank you very much, all, for attending. Looking forward to the rest of the year. We are happy to take any question offline if necessary.
Thanks, everyone.