Earnings call transcript: Pullup Entertainment’s Q1 2025 revenue surges 132%

Pullup Entertainment reported a robust start to the fiscal year with a remarkable 132% year-on-year increase in Q1 revenue, reaching €79 million. This performance was driven by strong sales from new releases and a solid performance from its back catalog. The company’s stock has demonstrated impressive momentum, delivering a 111% return over the past year and currently trading near its 52-week high of €29.30. According to InvestingPro analysis, the stock appears slightly undervalued based on its Fair Value calculation.

Key Takeaways

• Q1 revenue reached €79 million, marking a 132% increase year-on-year.
• New releases, particularly "Roadcraft," generated €19 million in revenue.
• The back catalog saw a 91% year-on-year increase, contributing €58 million.
• The stock price fell by 1.67% despite strong financial performance.

Company Performance

Pullup Entertainment’s Q1 2025 results highlight a record-breaking quarter, surpassing its previous high from Q1 FY2021. The company’s strategic focus on its back catalog and new releases like "Roadcraft" has paid off, positioning it well against industry competitors. The gaming sector continues to grow, and Pullup’s niche focus on passionate players has proven resilient in a challenging macroeconomic environment.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: €79 million, up 132% year-on-year.
• New releases revenue: €19 million, driven by "Roadcraft."
• Back catalog revenue: €58 million, up 91% year-on-year.

Outlook & Guidance

The company confirmed its targets for FY2026 and FY2027, projecting top-line and adjusted EBITDA to exceed FY2023 levels. Revenue for FY2026 is expected to be above the current consensus of €253 million, with continued emphasis on back catalog monetization and upcoming releases. InvestingPro data reveals that analysts anticipate a sales decline in the current year, though the company maintains an overall "GREAT" financial health score of 3.38 out of 5, suggesting strong fundamentals despite near-term challenges.

Executive Commentary

Giafroy Sardin, CEO of Pullup Entertainment, emphasized the company’s focus on a passionate player base, stating, "Our games are indeed targeting the most passionate and engaged players, and this is a very resilient audience." He also highlighted the company’s value proposition, saying, "We are delivering exceptional value with experiences that are unique and highly targeted."

Risks and Challenges

• The gaming market’s competitive nature may impact future growth.
• Macro-economic pressures could affect consumer spending on entertainment.
• The company’s reliance on a niche market might limit its audience reach.
• Potential supply chain disruptions could impact product launches.

Pullup Entertainment’s strong Q1 results demonstrate its strategic strength in the gaming sector, although the slight stock price decline suggests cautious investor sentiment amid broader market conditions.

Full transcript - Pullup Entertainment SA (ALPUL) Q1 2026:

Conference Moderator: Welcome to the PullUp Entertainment Q1 and twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six Revenue Conference Call. Now I will hand the conference over to Giafroy Sardin, CEO and Aurelian Bryan, CFO. Please go ahead.

Giafroy Sardin, CEO, PullUp Entertainment: 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 q one revenue was well above our prior best performance that we have achieved in the first quarter of fiscal twenty one. 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 far into momentum, but also from the depth of our portfolio of existing titles. Our teams are really experts 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 bad catalog and grow recurring revenues. We are indeed increasingly mastering life management best practices and as demonstrated by successful live operations of GovTel or with SnowRunner and Space Marine two. On the new release side, as mentioned in June, Roadcraft is significantly outperforming our initial expectations and is now on track to deliver over €50,000,000 revenue over its lifetime.

I cannot stress enough how the current setup of the markets with still plenty of new games offering and a more challenging macro environment is an opportunity for pull up 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 for them 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 two to Transient World, Drova, Voidcrew, and now Rodcraft. Likewise, recent players’ response to our game demos is impressive.

Absolom, Abyssus, and Ninja Gaiden Ridgebound, all three titles from Dotaemu, 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 Neo Fest event. They faced competition from over 2,000 games, and player reviews are promising within a range of 85 to 93 positive ratings. With such strong start of the year and supportive trends for our our upcoming titles, we confirm our targets for fiscal year twenty six 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 €1 per share. This reflects the solid operating cash flows delivered last year and the first benefits from the transformation strategy enact by pull up entertainment since the arrival of Neologie as a reference shareholders 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 Aurelian.

Aurelian Bryan, CFO, PullUp Entertainment: Thank you, Joaquin, and hello, everybody. In q one, revenue reached €79,000,000, up 132% year on year and well above our prior record of €64,000,000 achieved in q one fiscal twenty one. New releases revenue of 19 of €19,000,000 is mostly driven by the better than initially anticipated release of aircraft. We also launched drop du chy during this quarter. As a reminder, last year had not seen any meaningful release.

On the back catalog side, momentum was strong. Revenue reached €58,000,000, up 91% year on year. It was our biggest ever quarterly performance for our back catalog business. This reflects SpaceMind to great success as well as the depths of our portfolio. We were notably pleased with Trenton Ward, Jova, SnowRunner, and Boyco.

As mentioned during our full year earnings communication, back catalog saw a €19,000,000 impact from deferred revenue as we shipped during the quarter additional content included SpaceMind two season pass in SpaceMind two season pass. Impressively, excluding this deferred revenue ex sorry. Impressively, at €39,000,000, excluding this deferred revenue, this would still have been our biggest ever quarterly performance for our back catalog. As Joffre 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 twenty six top line and adjusted EBIT above f y 23 levels, which was our prior normalized record year performance, and adjusted EBIT growth for both fiscal fiscal year twenty seven and fiscal year twenty eight. Regarding our second quarter, will release Ninja Gaiden, RageBound, and Abyssus.

Although a yet to be announced title, we 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.

Conference Moderator: 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 Aurelian Sivignan from Auto BHF. Please unmute your microphone.

Aurelian Sivignan, Analyst, Auto BHF: So as we wait for Oregion, there is a question asked in return. Hello and congrats for this q one. Do you still have significant deferred revenue to book in the coming quarters?

Aurelian Bryan, CFO, PullUp Entertainment: No. We don’t have we don’t have any more different revenue to be released over the the next quarters as the the very the very last paid content of the season pass, the year one season pass of test nine two has been delivered at the very June. So nothing to come on that front in the coming in the coming quarters.

Aurelian Sivignan, Analyst, Auto BHF: We’re still waiting for. We have a question on memories in orbit.

Giafroy Sardin, CEO, PullUp Entertainment: Was there any MIO feedback from the next test? 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, you know, in demos during the Steam Neo Fest. It was an event released and planned last June. And the this demo received highly positive ratings much more than 88%.

So it’s right on track. We are really pleased with all the reviews and feedback, and we will announce quite soon, you know, when it would be released during this fiscal year.

Conference Moderator: Ask a question, please raise your hand via the blue button or submit a question through the chat.

Aurelian Sivignan, Analyst, Auto BHF: So we have another question from the chat. Congratulations on the q one performance. Do you do you still expect to buy back shares following the dividend announcement?

Aurelian Bryan, CFO, PullUp Entertainment: We we still have the possibility to do so. And and as usual, we will we will assess that in the coming days and weeks, but we we we can continue to do so. We still have the possibility. Yes.

Aurelian Sivignan, Analyst, Auto BHF: Okay. Another question. Can you tell us when the financial report for last year will be released?

Aurelian Bryan, CFO, PullUp Entertainment: It will be released in the in the coming days. We will do that before the end of the month of July. So it will it will come very soon.

Giafroy Sardin, CEO, PullUp Entertainment: Can you give us an update on scripting? Yes. Indeed. The script team for those who are not familiar with these departments, they are expert in audio visual production. The one of their goal is, in fact, is to work on our own IP in the transmedia genre, that is to say to produce and to coproduce series or movies on the on particular own IP.

We are working quite closely with some some platform, and we’ve got a deep discussion with some platform to adapt our own IP right now. This is discussion only discussion, but quite in a deep, you know, in a deep way. So, yes, script team is is on the way. In fact, he’s working quite heavily on this kind of topic using, you know, our own IP catalog.

Aurelian Sivignan, Analyst, Auto BHF: Another question from the chat. On top of adjusted EBITDA guidance for fiscal year twenty six and twenty seven, have you provided sales forecast for for these years?

Aurelian Bryan, CFO, PullUp Entertainment: What we said what we said is that f y twenty six and twenty seven will be above our prior record of f y twenty three, which was €194,000,000. And we said last time that for f y twenty six, we will be above the consensus at this time, which was €253,000,000 for f y twenty six.

Aurelian Sivignan, Analyst, Auto BHF: Okay. Another question from the from the chat. A clarification maybe on the different revenue we addressed it earlier, but just in case, you mentioned €90,000,000 of revenue leads to the to the back catalog. Should we understand that these revenues are only related to Space Marine two? This is the first question.

And is it a fair amount for the next few quarters?

Aurelian Bryan, CFO, PullUp Entertainment: Yes. The 19,000,000 rule I mentioned are fully linked to SpaceMind two, and this is the this this is the this is related to the content that has been released during this very intense quarter, q one quarter on space nine two in terms of content. No. The the the different revenue on the first year of of space nine two is not over, so there is no more deferred revenue. And the the next quarter, we’ll see we’ll see a further content of our space marine two, and we will see by the end of the year if we have if we have additional revenue.

But for the time being, as part of the year one, we are we are all done. Nothing to come. Nothing more to come. Sorry.

Aurelian Sivignan, Analyst, Auto BHF: So we have a very active chat. Should we expect new announcements in the coming weeks? For example, at the Gamescom and around Toxic Commando, or most of the games of the of the coming months are already discussed?

Giafroy Sardin, CEO, PullUp Entertainment: Thank you for your question. As we know and, yes, you know by heart that Gamescom is is a nice place, in fact, to set up some key bit of communication with nice execution. So you could expect to get, you know, more information during Gamescom with with announcements. You have to be a little bit patient, a few weeks to to wait. But, yes, Gamescom is is something important for the industry and especially for portfolio.

We have

Aurelian Sivignan, Analyst, Auto BHF: a question regarding so as well as so, yeah, can you tell us how many shares are owned now and if there is plan to cancel them or to keep them in the hands for acquisition or stock based compensation?

Aurelian Bryan, CFO, PullUp Entertainment: Yeah. So as of today, we had 7.6 of our cap of shares. Our capital is 8 dot €5,000,000 shares. So we have seven dot 6% of that. For the time being, the plan is not to cancel the those shares.

And, yes, it’s it’s more to to to be to be reactive for any m and a opportunities or for stock compensation stock based compensation.

Aurelian Sivignan, Analyst, Auto BHF: We have no more questions from the chats. I don’t know

Giafroy Sardin, CEO, PullUp Entertainment: if there is any question from the live part. Maybe we’ll find already the asked question. Okay.

Aurelian Sivignan, Analyst, Auto BHF: We got a question from mine. Okay.

Conference Moderator: There are no more questions at this time. So I hand the conference back to the speakers for any closing comments.

Giafroy Sardin, CEO, PullUp Entertainment: Thanks very much to all the to all the participants of this call. We wish you a very pleasant evening. Thank you very much.

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