Playtika filed its second-quarter report on 6 August 2026, and we are writing about it here today.
Verification: the figures in this article come from the Form 8-K that Playtika Holding Corp. filed with the SEC on August 6, 2026 at 08:01 ET, under Item 2.02 and Item 9.01, accession number 0001828016-26-000046, CIK 0001828016.
The earnings release itself is Exhibit 99.1 and the earnings presentation is Exhibit 99.2, and every number here comes from there and from nowhere else. Even so, errors, inaccuracies or omissions are possible, and the figures may change after publication. Spotted something that looks wrong? Write to me and I will correct it.
What the company does
Playtika is a mobile gaming company. It builds and runs games for the smartphone. Its main offices are in Herzliya, but legally it is an American company incorporated in Delaware, which is why it reports to the SEC as a domestic filer on Form 8-K rather than on the Form 6-K used by foreign private issuers.
The business model is easy to explain. The games are free to download, and the money comes from small purchases inside the game: coins, extra lives, items. A very small share of players pays, and that share funds everything else. That is why the company reports four metrics worth knowing:
- DAU and MAU are the average number of active users per day and per month.
- Paying users are the ones who actually spent money.
- ARPDAU is the average daily revenue per active user, meaning how much each head produces.
- Payer conversion is the share of users who pay out of all users.
Another term that recurs in this report is DTC, short for direct to consumer. Instead of the player buying through Apple's or Google's app store, which take a fee, the player buys in the company's own web shop. The exact same purchase, except the fee stays with Playtika. That is why the company is pushing hard in that direction.
A third term, and one that matters a great deal here, is contingent consideration. When a company acquires another company, part of the price is sometimes paid only if the acquired business hits targets. Every quarter the acquirer re-estimates how much it expects to pay in the end, and the difference runs through the income statement. This is not cash coming in or going out, it is an accounting estimate. At Playtika this relates to the SuperPlay acquisition, and it swings the bottom line in both directions.
The big titles are Bingo Blitz, the long-standing flagship, Disney Solitaire, which is built on licensed Disney intellectual property the company does not own, and June's Journey.
The quarter
| Metric | Q2 2026 | Q2 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | 731.1 million dollars | 696.0 million dollars |
| DTC platform revenue | 286.9 million dollars | Not disclosed as a dollar figure, the release states a 63.1% increase |
| Operating income | 134.6 million dollars | 109.7 million dollars |
| Net income | 48.0 million dollars | 33.2 million dollars |
| Diluted earnings per share | 0.13 dollars | 0.09 dollars |
| Adjusted EBITDA | 206.1 million dollars | 167.0 million dollars |
| Adjusted EBITDA margin | 28.2% | 24.0% |
| Adjusted net income | 53.6 million dollars | 6.5 million dollars |
| Average daily active users | 8.0 million | 8.8 million |
| Average daily paying users | 367 thousand | 378 thousand |
| ARPDAU | 1.01 dollars | 0.87 dollars |
| Average payer conversion | 4.6% | 4.3% |
Revenue rose 5.0% year over year but fell 1.8% sequentially. Adjusted EBITDA rose 23.4% year over year. Payer conversion also improved against the first quarter of 2026, when it stood at 4.5%.
Two notes have to travel with this table. First, the year-ago net income of 33.2 million dollars was inflated by a 33.0 million dollar non-cash gain from revaluing contingent consideration, against a 2.0 million dollar expense this quarter. In other words the real underlying improvement is larger than the gap in the table suggests, not smaller. The same applies to operating income: general and administrative expense a year ago was only 17.9 million dollars versus 54.1 million dollars now, because of that same line.
The second note concerns adjusted net income. The jump from 6.5 million dollars to 53.6 million dollars looks dramatic, but the comparison base is artificially small: the company's own reconciliation strips the 33.0 million dollar contingent-consideration gain out of the year-ago GAAP net income. That is an artifact of how the bridge is built, not an eightfold improvement in the business.
The main thing in this report: a reaffirmation that is really a cut
The release says the company is reaffirming its full-year guidance, and then immediately says something quite different. This is the verbatim wording from the release:
"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."
The headline word is reaffirm. The substance is a downgrade. A range that stays on paper but that the company itself points you to the bottom of is not the same range it was before. This is the most important thing in the report, and anyone reading only the headline line misses it.
And underneath the pretty quarter sits a much less pretty half year. Here are those six months:
| Metric | Six months 2026 | Six months 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Net income | Loss of 9.5 million dollars | Profit of 63.8 million dollars |
| Diluted earnings per share | Loss of 0.03 dollars | Profit of 0.17 dollars |
| Adjusted EBITDA | 331.3 million dollars | 334.3 million dollars |
| Adjusted EBITDA margin | 22.4% | 23.8% |
| Cash from operating activities | 51.5 million dollars | 164.9 million dollars |
| Free cash flow | 15.0 million dollars | 119.6 million dollars |
The company swung from a profit of 63.8 million dollars to a loss of 9.5 million dollars. There is no point computing a percentage change here, because you cannot compute percentages off a negative base. The main driver is a 97.0 million dollar charge in the half for changes in the estimated value of contingent consideration. Six-month Adjusted EBITDA is also slightly below last year's, and the six-month margin fell rather than rose. None of this appears in the financial highlights at the top of the release.
Where the growth and the margin came from
Revenue is rising while the user base contracts. Daily active users fell to 8.0 million from 8.8 million, monthly actives to 24.8 million from 30.0 million, and paying users to 367 thousand from 378 thousand, down 2.9% year over year and 5.2% sequentially. What is going up is ARPDAU, from 0.87 dollars to 1.01 dollars. The growth is entirely monetization intensity, meaning extracting more money from fewer people.
The title mix is shifting fast, too. Bingo Blitz, the long-standing flagship, fell 9.5% year over year to 145.1 million dollars and 5.6% sequentially. Disney Solitaire jumped 288.6% to 142.4 million dollars, up 15.5% sequentially, and nearly overtook Bingo Blitz as the largest title. June's Journey brought in 74.7 million dollars, up 8.1% year over year and down 1.7% sequentially. That means rising concentration around licensed intellectual property the company does not own, and the release's own risk factors cite reliance on a limited number of games.
And the margin expansion is substantially cost cutting. Research and development fell to 96.4 million dollars from 114.5 million dollars, down 15.8%. Depreciation and amortization fell to 45.2 million dollars from 61.0 million dollars, which is 15.8 million dollars of tailwind to operating income that is not operational at all. The half included 15.3 million dollars of severance. Marketing stepped down sharply: 613.2 million dollars for the half, of which 252.6 million dollars in the second quarter, implying roughly 360.6 million dollars in the first quarter by simple subtraction. That is why the 64.6% sequential jump in Adjusted EBITDA is measured against an unusually depressed base and does not indicate underlying momentum.
Here is what management said about it. Robert Antokol, chief executive officer: "Disney Solitaire grew again this quarter even as we reduced our marketing investment and our margins expanded meaningfully." Tae Lee, chief financial officer: "marketing stepped down materially, margins expanded, and SuperPlay became a positive Adjusted EBITDA contributor."
What is not in the release's highlights. Six-month free cash flow fell to 15.0 million dollars from 119.6 million dollars, and cash from operating activities fell to 51.5 million dollars from 164.9 million dollars. Free cash flow is a company-defined measure and appears only in a table near the back of the release. At the same time, cash and short-term investments fell to 438.5 million dollars at June 30, 2026, from 820.2 million dollars at the end of December 2025, which was 684.2 million dollars of cash plus 136.0 million dollars of short-term investments. That comparison is to year end and not to a year-ago quarter, because the release does not give a June 30, 2025 balance sheet. The decline of roughly 382 million dollars in six months is driven mainly by a 350.0 million dollar contingent consideration payment. Against that sit long-term debt of 2,372.7 million dollars, remaining contingent consideration of 370.0 million dollars (200.0 million current and 170.0 million non-current), a stockholders' deficit of 399.9 million dollars, and a 550 million dollar revolving credit facility expiring in March 2027 that the risk factors flag as a refinancing concern. Over the same period dividends paid fell to 37.7 million dollars from 74.9 million dollars, and share buybacks went to zero from 10.9 million dollars.
How to read the accounting numbers here. The contingent consideration line dominates the bottom line in both directions: a 33.0 million dollar gain inflated the year-ago quarter, and a 97.0 million dollar charge created this half's loss. These are non-cash fair-value marks on the SuperPlay earnout, not operating results, and they make every year-over-year GAAP comparison in this release unreliable without adjustment. On top of that, shares issued rose to 433.2 million from 428.8 million, and diluted weighted-average shares rose to 382.2 million from 375.6 million, which is mild dilution in exactly the period when shareholder returns were being reduced.
The guidance
The company reaffirmed its full-year 2026 ranges: revenue of 2.75 to 2.85 billion dollars and Adjusted EBITDA of 750 to 790 million dollars. It then immediately said it expects to finish toward the lower end of both ranges, citing a more cautious view of consumer spending and a planned step-down in second-half marketing.
One technical point worth knowing: Exhibit 99.1 is furnished rather than filed, under General Instruction B.2 of Form 8-K. That means these figures are unaudited and carry a lower liability standard than the full quarterly report on Form 10-Q that is still to come. This is entirely standard practice, but it is the reason the numbers here may be updated.
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דעה אישית של אילן אברמוב - לא ייעוץ ולא המלצה
The quarter itself is good, and there is no point pretending otherwise. Revenue of 731.1 million dollars with a 28.2% Adjusted EBITDA margin versus 24.0% a year ago, and real net income of 48.0 million dollars, is a clean quarter. Strip out the contingent-consideration distortion and the year-over-year improvement is even larger than the table shows.
What bothers me is the gap between the quarter and the half. A quarter with 48.0 million dollars of profit inside a half year that ended in a 9.5 million dollar loss, with free cash flow down to 15.0 million dollars from 119.6 million dollars, is not the same story. When the less pleasant numbers do not make it into the highlights at the top of the release, that is itself a data point.
The wording of the guidance troubles me more than the guidance does. Saying reaffirm and in the same breath pointing at the bottom of the range is two different messages in one paragraph. I prefer a company that simply says: we are lowering it.
The growth comes from fewer people paying more. Monthly users falling from 30.0 million to 24.8 million while ARPDAU rises from 0.87 dollars to 1.01 dollars is an engine you can run for a while, but it is not infinite. Meanwhile Disney Solitaire, at 142.4 million dollars, has become almost the largest title, on a brand the company does not own.
What I will be watching next quarter. Whether free cash flow recovers now that the 350.0 million dollar payment is behind the company, what happens with the 550 million dollar credit facility expiring in March 2027, and whether the decline in users stops or continues. There is no recommendation here, only a list of things I am looking at.
