Motorsport Games Inc. (MSGM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Thank you for standing by, and welcome to Motorsport Games Inc. Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's call is being recorded. I would like to now turn the conference over to Ben Rossiter-Turner from Motorsport Games. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome to Motorsport Games Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call and Webcast. On today's call is Motorsport Games' Chief Executive Officer, Stephen Hood; and Chief Financial Officer, Peter Hansen-Chambers. By now, everyone should have access to the company's second quarter 2026 earnings press release filed today after market close. This is available on the Investor Relations of Motorsport Games website at www.motorsportgames.com. During the course of this call, management may make forward-looking statements within the meaning of U.S. federal securities laws. These statements are based on management's current expectations and beliefs and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, the company undertakes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made on this call or to update or alter its forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Please refer to today's press release and the company's filings with the SEC, including its most recent quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, for a detailed discussion on certain risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in any forward-looking statements made today. In today's conference call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures, such as adjusted EBITDA as we discuss the second quarter 2026 financial results. You will find a reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures as well as other related disclosures in the press release issued earlier today, which is also available on the Investor Relations section of Motorsport Games website at www.motorsportgames.com. And now I'd like to turn over the call to Stephen Hood, Chief Executive Officer of Motorsport Games. Stephen?

Thank you, Ben. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining the Motorsport Games Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. We're now 6 consecutive quarters into proving that this business works. First half revenue was $7.6 million, up 74% year-on-year, and gross margin expanded to almost 85% from just under 79% a year ago. We're not just growing, we're growing more efficiently. We generated positive operating income for the sixth quarter in a row. Le Mans Ultimate and RaceControl remain the 2 engines behind that. And this quarter, RaceControl took another real step forward, which I'll come back to. Le Mans Ultimate player engagement accelerated in this quarter. We spoke last time about the all-time peak of more than 8,800 concurrent players achieved in March. That momentum spiked again. April was our highest ever month for average daily active users, which, as I've said previously, is the number that matters most to us. It tells us players are sticking around, not just appearing for a moment. I'm delighted to say that we've now sold more than 0.5 million units of the base game and more than 1.2 million individual pieces of DLC or downloadable content since launch. That's 0.5 million players enjoying Le Mans Ultimate enough to then go on and spend additionally to extend that experience, an experience that has clearly resonated within the player base we've built. This is the interesting part. Each and every one of those players competing online has an account on RaceControl. They exist within a platform we operate within our ecosystem. That is an advantage to us on several fronts. We can ensure a cleaner onboarding experience for new players, we can communicate with them directly, and we can continue to invest in building the platform. I've said before that RaceControl deserves to be understood not solely as a feature that supports Le Mans Ultimate, but as a stand-alone platform business. And this quarter makes that case better than any quarter before it. Peter, our new CFO, will walk you through just how fast that's scaling, but the short version is this. We're building a unique model in our sector. It's recurring, it's predictable, high margin and isn't seasonally affected by releases as a traditional game release model. It helps us to engage with and retain players, establishing a loyal community. We can monetize the most engaged players and funnel those revenues back into the service and products to improve them further. RaceControl might still be in its infancy, but we believe that it will prove to be an ever more critical component of our distinct entertainment offerings in the future. We believe it's already proving to be a real jewel in our portfolio, amplifying our games in a distinct way versus the competition. On our last call, we talked about wanting to bring content to Le Mans Ultimate that reaches players who aren't already bought into the Le Mans and European racing world. As strong as we are in Europe, understandable given the product title, we know that's not the entire addressable market and that there are great racing experiences outside the laser focus on Le Mans content we've stuck to since launch. In July, after quarter end, we updated the game to version 1.4 and with it added Daytona and Laguna Seca, 2 of the most iconic circuits in American racing as the first part of our newly released U.S. Track Pack. We expect Packs 2 and 3 in September and December, respectively, and we're actively exploring what comes next for Le Mans Ultimate content in 2027. Whilst we do not envisage opening our Le Mans gaming title to completely unrelated racing content, we do believe there are still significant content offerings that can be added to the Le Mans Ultimate experience over at least the next couple of years. To go beyond this, we will need to release a new title. We will have more on that on our next earnings call. For now, let me move on to console progress and how we're shaping up on bringing Le Mans Ultimate to PlayStation and Xbox platforms. On consoles, development of Le Mans Ultimate for PlayStation and Xbox continues as planned. As I said before, this is complex work, bringing a high-fidelity simulation experience to the home console market isn't routine in our industry, but we believe console players are starved of the kind of experience we know we can deliver. Not every player can justify the expense of a suitable gaming PC, let alone a simulator rig complete with the wheel and pedals. Bringing Le Mans Ultimate to console widens our reach and allows us to connect with a market that is genuinely underserved. PC-level simulation experiences are hard to find on console platforms. Arriving on console will be another important milestone in the growth of our company, and the learnings from this project will directly benefit future releases. Before I hand over, a word on our leadership. Peter Hansen-Chambers joined us as Chief Financial Officer effective July 1, and this is his first call with us. He brings a wealth of experience from highly respected games companies, including Codemasters and more recently, Hutch, where he was CFO and Co-CEO. I'm very glad to have him on board. Internally, I have been relaying to our team that in order for us to take the next step on our journey, we need to evaluate how we make progress. So the recovery of Motorsport Games, whilst a wonderful story is not the story. There is still so much more to do, and it's important that everyone in our organization appreciates the energy that will be required to move ahead. Peter's energy, enthusiasm and experience is a key part of our continual evolution. I also want to thank Stanley Beckley for his role in getting this company back on track. We're delighted that he continues with us in his role as Chief Accounting and Compliance Officer. The workload has grown, and it made sense to expand the team so that we can meet the challenge of transitioning from recovery to growth whilst retaining the talent and expertise that help shape our return to form. This strength has allowed us to act opportunistically where we see value for the company's long-term health and value for shareholders. We completed the purchase of a significant amount of Class A common stock from Driven Lifestyle Group, which retired all outstanding Class B shares. Every outstanding share of our common stock now carries equal voting rights. Finally, I want to relay we're increasingly focused on the next stage of growth. I said on our last call that we're in the formative stages of a new long-term project that leverages everything we've built and operate today, our simulation technology, the RaceControl platform, our live service infrastructure, F1 Arcade and the proven underpinnings that power our successful Le Mans Ultimate game, alongside the relationship with our players that we took so much care to build and continue to maintain. The Motorsport Games of today is a boutique game studio, building not just the games, but the entire ecosystem for racing and driving fans. Our long-term bets are paying off, and everything we've experienced this past quarter has reaffirmed our belief that we have the foundations in place to deliver on our road map, the detail of which will be shared on our next earnings call. And with that, I'll hand over to Peter.

Thank you, Stephen, for the kind introduction, and good evening, everyone. It's genuinely exciting to be here. Having spent my first few weeks getting under the hood of the business, I can see real value in what's already been built. Talented people, strong technology and relationships that give us a platform to build from. As with previous earnings calls, I won't be offering forward guidance today. Instead, I'd like to walk through our first half and second quarter results and explain why we believe they represent real progress as we strive to build an exciting, high-performing gaming company that delivers not only for our players today, but for the business long term. Before I get into the numbers, I want to share some context upfront that I think is useful for how you read our results and view the business over time. Le Mans Ultimate is a live service multi-season project that is continuing to grow and evolve in order to engage, retain and grow our player base through the release of new content, features and other improvements. Given the nature of that undertaking, what happens in any given month or quarter is shaped by various factors. There's normal seasonality, the usual impact you'd see around holidays or over the summer, for instance. For us, there's also the real-world motorsport calendar, given many of our players that have an interest in real-world motorsport influencing performance around such events. There's the composition of our own release schedule. Some updates are quick and modest. Others are bigger, more ambitious pieces of work that simply take longer to complete and then land with more impact when they do. Some releases prioritize what the community are telling us, whilst others may be focused on longer-term strategic benefit to the business. All of these factors influence performance at any given time, and therefore, growth will not be a straight line each and every month or quarter-to-quarter. With this in mind, we would encourage everyone to judge our performance over a longer time horizon than any single quarter in isolation to observe our overall performance as we continue to invest and build in the product. It's that ongoing investment and what it unlocks next that gives us real confidence in where this business is heading. I'll start with RaceControl, our free-to-join player platform, which also offers premium subscription tiers because it's increasingly central to the story we want to tell as we transform Motorsport Games. As Stephen mentioned earlier, RaceControl allows us to establish an important direct relationship with our players whilst offering an opportunity for us to promote new content and features. Through RaceControl, we can convert engaged players into premium subscription tiers that offer better value by expanding the experience. At the same time, this SaaS model means we can continue to support investment in new content and features, extending the lifetime of products, all whilst increasing player monetization. Subscription revenue from RaceControl for the first half of 2026 was approximately $1.4 million, up from approximately $0.3 million in the first half of 2025, growth of almost 349% year-on-year. On a run rate basis, RaceControl is now generating annual recurring revenue of approximately $2.9 million, up from $1.2 million for the whole of last year. RaceControl revenues represented 18% of our total revenues for the first half of 2026 versus 7% in the first half of 2025 and less than 1% for the full year 2024. This is particularly impressive given this is happening alongside 74% growth in our total company revenue, not despite a decline in it. Behind those numbers is real subscriber growth. We ended June with over 40,500 paid subscribers, up more than 230% since June last year, all achieved organically. RaceControl is financially lucrative as well as strategically important. It delivers high-margin recurring revenue and increases player lifetime value or LTV. We intend to keep investing in it, both to grow our subscriber base and to deepen engagement with our existing players. That momentum achieved with RaceControl reveals itself in our top line results, too. Revenue has grown every year since 2023, up 25.7% in 2024 and a further 30% in 2025. At the same time, gross profit margin has expanded alongside it from 47.6% to 81.5% over that same period. This is evidence that the business is scaling efficiently as it grows, not just growing. For the first half of 2026 specifically, revenue was $7.6 million, up 74% year-on-year, and gross profit grew even faster at 86.9% to $6.4 million, with gross profit margin expanding further to 84.7% from 78.8% a year ago. That trajectory, consistent revenue growth alongside gross profit margin expansion now across 3.5 years is exactly the kind of compounding progress we want to continue delivering through the rest of 2026 and beyond. Turning to profitability. I'm delighted to share that GAAP net income was positive for a sixth consecutive quarter, representing an impressive achievement for the business. In the first half of 2026, we delivered $1.2 million compared to $5.3 million in the first half of 2025. However, these numbers do not tell the full story. That prior year comparison isn't like-for-like as H1 2025 included a $0.8 million gain from the WESCO settlement agreement and a $0.5 million gain from the HC2 Holdings 2 settlement agreement and a $3.3 million foreign currency exchange gain, which did not recur this year. On an adjusted basis, which we believe is the more meaningful measure of our underlying performance, adjusted EBITDA for the second quarter was $0.8 million for the quarter compared to $1.4 million in Q2 2025. However, it's worth noting that Q2 2025's adjusted EBITDA carries with it the benefits of nonrecurring gains related to discounts negotiated on a few outstanding vendor invoices. We have also continued making investments in expanding our product mix in 2026. If we look at the 6 months ended June 2026, we achieved adjusted EBITDA of $2.2 million, more than double the $1.0 million we generated in the same period last year, growth of approximately 122.7%. With regards to adjusted diluted EPS, we reported $0.19 for the quarter compared to $0.25 a year ago, which was due to the same factors impacting adjusted EBITDA mentioned before. For the 6 months ended June 2026, adjusted diluted EPS was $0.33 compared to $0.24 in H1 2025. Adjusted EBITDA and diluted EPS reconciliations can be found on the Investor Relations section of Motorsport Games website at motorsportgames.com. Turning to the balance sheet. We have continued to generate strong, consistent operating cash flow, averaging approximately $0.5 million per month over the 6 months ended June 30, 2026, driven by increased profitability and the capitalization of internally developed software. As of June 30, 2026, we had cash and cash equivalents of $3.9 million. The year-to-date change in our cash position and working capital is largely explained by capital we deployed during the quarter, most notably the $3.7 million repurchase of Class A shares from Driven Lifestyle Group, which also retired all Class B super voting shares and simplified our capital structure. We view this as a strong use of improving cash generation. We also secured a $3 million revolving credit facility from Citibank in February 2026, of which $1.2 million was drawn down as of June 30, 2026. In May 2026, Citibank extended the maturity of that facility to February 2028, giving us continued flexibility as we invest in growth. Thank you all for your time. And now I will turn the call back to Stephen for closing remarks.

In closing, the story of the first half of 2026 is straightforward. Le Mans Ultimate continues to grow, RaceControl is proving itself to be a real platform business faster than we might have expected, and our margins and cash generation are moving in the right direction. Six consecutive profitable quarters are not an accident and neither is the pace of RaceControl's growth. The moves we made this quarter on developing new revenue streams, on expanding our addressable audience, on governance, on financing and on the road map, all point in the same direction. We're building something to last and drive long-term shareholder value creation and sustainable profitability. We've got a lot more to share with you on the Q3 call, and I'm looking forward to it. Thank you all for joining us today, and thank you for your interest in Motorsport Games. I'll now hand it back to the operator.

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Anja Soderstrom with Sidoti & Company.

Peter, this is Justin on for Anja. With the release of the first USA Track Pack in July, can you discuss how that is trending and the road map for additional content releases through the remainder of the year and into 2027?

[Operator Instructions]

Justin, thank you for your question. Yes, I mean, so far, we've seen a very good reaction from our community to that release. It, in fact, has been performing better than we had hoped, which is good. It's been a strong initial release. There had been some anticipation about what we were going to launch. And there's obviously more speculation about what will come. As it stands right now, we're working on additional content that will follow this year. We've got another 2 releases of packs that will come later in the year, date to be confirmed.

Very helpful. Turning to RaceControl, how is recurring revenue building? Can you give us a sense of the growth trajectory you anticipate and maybe where retention is running?

I'm sorry, Justin, can you repeat the question?