管理層發言
Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Super Group First Quarter 2026 Earnings Webcast and Conference Call. I'd now like to turn the call over to Nkem Ojougboh, Head of Investor Relations. You may begin.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Super Group's results for the first quarter 2026. During this call, Super Group may make comments of a forward-looking nature that are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed further in its SEC filings that could cause the actual results to differ materially from historical results or from our forecast. We assume no responsibility to update forward-looking statements other than as required by law. On today's call, we may refer to certain non-GAAP financial measures. These non-GAAP financial measures are in addition to and not a substitute for measures of financial performance prepared in accordance with GAAP. We have provided a reconciliation of the non-GAAP financial measures to the most comparable GAAP figures in the press release issued yesterday and available on the Investor Relations page on our website. We recommend that investors refer to the supplementary presentation posted to our website. Today, I'm joined by Neal Menashe, Chief Executive Officer; and Alinda Van Wyk, Chief Financial Officer. After our prepared remarks, we will open the call up for questions. And now I'd like to turn the call over to Neal.
Thank you, Nkem, and good morning, everyone. The first quarter of 2026 marked a record-breaking start for Super Group. We delivered all-time high quarterly revenue and unprecedented monthly active customers. Deposits and wagers also reached peak levels, extending our Q4 momentum. These results reflect the strength of our strategy, our brand and our people. As our business evolves, so does our reporting. We are introducing a new reporting structure consisting of two segments: Africa and International. Africa includes all revenue generated across the African continent while International includes all revenue generated outside of Africa. This new approach highlights the distinct operating models across our four regions, providing shareholders with deeper insight into each unit's drivers and growth potential. The executives responsible for these segments remain unchanged. Africa delivered an excellent Q1.
Revenue for the quarter grew 53% year-over-year with adjusted EBITDA up 21% to $98 million. Sports and casino wagers were up 33% and 36%, respectively, year-over-year. Botswana continues to perform well. I recently spent time on the ground with our team in Nigeria, and the actions we are taking there will strengthen our growth profile as we ramp up execution. The phased rollout of our Super Coin consumer wallet began in mid-April with a soft beta launch for our Bestway South Africa customers. Our goal is simple: expand utility and gradually increase customer engagement across our ecosystem. We will reach a key milestone late in the quarter with additional listings on OVEC and Vela, two of the largest exchanges in South Africa. These listings significantly enhance liquidity and accessibility and provide a solid foundation for broader adoption as we optimize engagement and unit economics. For the International segment, revenue was up 9% with adjusted EBITDA growing 26% to $73 million.
European revenue growth of 18% year-over-year was strongly driven by a 29% increase in the U.K., where we are capturing market share, thanks to record customer acquisition off the back of continued product improvement and a successful Cheltenham festival. We remain encouraged by Ireland's growth of 13% with local regulation expected in the second half of this year. In North America, Canada ex-Ontario delivered 16% revenue growth supported by retention and product enhancements. Despite an increasingly competitive environment, Ontario achieved a post-regulation record for new customers. Alberta, up 22% year-over-year, remains on track for local regulation in July with a safe and regimented brand rollout. Overall, North America, excluding the U.S., grew 15%. Rest of World saw revenue growth of 8%, with New Zealand growing 6% year-over-year, which is particularly encouraging after last quarter's 5% decline.
We remain disciplined while we await the anticipated local regulations framework. Overall, our sports business continues to enjoy strong margins. We are fortifying our sports trading and risk management capabilities ahead of the World Cup. This quarter, we implemented targeted changes to materially improve margin resilience within our promotional mechanics, pricing and payout structures. These measures proved their value in February, which was a particularly challenging month for sports due to customer-friendly outcomes. Meanwhile, our casino business remains the super reliable, steady and constant engine of Super Group. We don't take this for granted. We continue to innovate, extend and improve in numerous and meaningful ways. We have made it easier for our customers to discover content. We are personalizing their experiences, and we are stepping up gamification and engagement. The result is targeted product and incentive management that delivers strong retention and responsible, consistent and profitable customer behavior.
Net effect: a business where 80% of our revenue is driven by predictable, high-quality and super persistent annuity revenue streams that offer shareholders unwavering reliability and confidence. With that, I'll turn it over to Alinda.
Thank you, Neal. Quarter 1, 2026 marks an outstanding start to the year for Super Group, and I couldn't be more pleased to share these results. We have delivered a record total revenue of $612 million, up 18% year-over-year, while adjusted EBITDA grew 36% to $152 million. Our margin expanded to 25% compared with 22% in the prior year period, driven by strong acquisition and retention strategies. Average monthly active customers reached a record 6.4 million, up 18% year-over-year, with March setting a new monthly high of 6.5 million customers. Wagers increased 23% for sports and 20% for casino compared to last year. Disciplined cost management, controlled marketing spend and strong operating leverage are clearly reflected in our results. With continued focus on AI-driven efficiencies and high return markets, we are well positioned to pursue sustainable long-term growth. Our balance sheet remains really strong, supported by high-quality earnings and measured capital allocation.
We ended the quarter with $422 million in cash. This represents a 20% increase year-over-year despite returning $152 million to shareholders, including the special dividend paid in February. Our free cash flow conversion of 75% remained strong, reinforcing the confidence that we showed when we recently increased our minimum quarterly dividend target to $0.05 per share. Building on the strong momentum of quarter 1, we are entering the rest of the year with confidence. Quarter 2 is tracking positively with growth opportunities ahead bolstered by an action-packed World Cup calendar. Our focus on marketing and operational efficiencies remains unchanged. As a result, we are reaffirming our full year 2026 guidance with total revenue expected to reach at least $2.55 billion and adjusted EBITDA to be more than $680 million. I will now hand back to Neal for closing remarks.
Thank you, Alinda. This quarter underscores the effectiveness of Super Group's strategy and discipline. We are building momentum across regions, bolstering margin resilience and enhancing our product and customer experience. With a strong start to the year, strengthening our casino business and attractive global sporting calendar ahead and a strengthened leadership team focused on execution and efficiencies, Super Group is well positioned for the remainder of 2026 and beyond. Operator, please open the call up for questions.
分析師問答
Your first question comes from the line of Michael Hickey from StoneX.
Neal, Alinda and Nkem, congratulations, guys, on a great Q1. Two questions from us. Neal, Alinda. On your Q1 performance here, obviously, a strong beat versus expectations. And the MAU growth was exceptional, plus 18%, I think you had a record of 6.5 million in March. So I guess how are you thinking about the decision here, Alinda, Neal to reaffirm your guidance versus raising for the full year at this stage?
Okay. So our guidance, as you know, was for revenue greater than $2.55 billion and, very importantly, EBITDA greater than $680 million. So we are confident about those numbers when we told them to you in February. Now after Q1, we remain confident. This isn't the first time that we've outperformed, Mike. We've never increased guidance at this stage of the year. It's just not something we do so early on in the year. We obviously are focused, as you know, on executing and delivering growth, and we're not finessing projections and guidance. It's really that simple.
And just to add to that, I think it's important also to note, we're just not in that beat-and-raise game, as you all know — we are tracking ahead of our expectations, and we're very encouraged by what we're seeing in the momentum, but we're only 25% into the year.
Next question for you guys, just on the World Cup. You gave some great data here in your deck. It looks like 80% — 88-plus percent of your revenue is generated from World Cup participating markets and 73% of your GGR from football. So obviously, it looks like the World Cup here is shaping up to be a significant catalyst in Q2 and Q3. How should we think about the potential uplift to both player activity and revenue during the tournament period? And then the follow-up, how should we think about the timing and scale of the cross-sell of these incremental players to casino which, of course, would make this World Cup catalyst durable?
All right. So I mean, listen, I have this data point that basically — what I found interesting is that 40% of the countries we operate in are participating in the World Cup, and that represents almost 88% of our 2025 revenue. So what we will get is we're super confident about the engagement of our customers in these markets. We've obviously done strong product stability enhancements ahead of the tournament, and we're focusing on the scale and the customer experience. It's a bit different this World Cup compared to the 2022 World Cup. The 2022 World Cup was in the winter months, it was late in November and December, and at 64 matches because there were fewer teams in that year. This year it's in June and July with 104 matches. So literally 63% more matches with more engagement. So for us, it's all about giving content for our customers. In the first half of the competition, because there are 48 teams, there might be many favorites drawing or losing in our business, so we will see how that first half goes. As they get into the knockout stages, which will be at the beginning of July, we will see what happens there. But it's about engagement in sports and then the cross-sell into our casinos. And the cross-sell norm is like 60% to 70% into casino, which is nice.
Your next question comes from the line of Ryan Sigdahl from Craig-Hallum.
I want to pick just one follow-up on the guidance. Are you willing to comment on trends you've seen in April and May? I get the reason to reiterate this early in the year, but curious if you've seen any deceleration in the business or any trends or anything to really give you concern?
All right. So this quarter started off great. Obviously, in February, remember, quarter 1 had a big loss in February on one day when all the favorites basically lost and our customers won. But we haven't seen any deceleration. Remember, our guidance is greater than $680 million. So we are confident about that. And remember, our business is 80% casino — stable, consistent, and annuity income every single day.
Second question, just the U.K. tax effect went in effect recently here. What are you seeing in the market from your competitors? What have you done from a marketing promotion standpoint? Really nice quarter results and momentum in that business despite that. But just curious for kind of an industry and company update there?
Yes. Thank you for the question. We called out around a 6% pre-mitigation 2025 EBITDA impact; it's around a $30 million hit. However, we are starting to pull multiple levers in order to mitigate that. As we said, even with the April numbers already in effect we haven't seen a massive impact because of operating leverage and the way we manage our marketing. So we feel in a confident position to see this through.
And also, we did call out that it only kicked in on 1 April, so it's only been a couple of weeks and five weeks in; the marketing rates will start coming down when everyone starts doing their numbers. They have to get used to the new world of taxes. And obviously, we have to be efficient. Part of our two-segment approach being International and Africa and bringing International together has effectively given us operating leverage.
Your next question comes from the line of Bernard McTernan from Needham & Company.
First, I just wanted to ask about the new breakdown in terms of EBITDA. I greatly appreciate you being able to show Africa versus International. Alinda, can you just talk about the margin opportunity in Africa? Any thoughts on incremental margins just as the region continues to grow, how we should expect margins to scale with it? And then I have a follow-up.
Thanks for the question, Bernie. I'm glad to be able to share that transparency to the market to see what it brings. The expectation probably was that it would be very heavily weighted towards Africa. Saying that, that gives us the ability to have really strong possibility to still have that margin expansion. We always do it in kind of strategies. One is our return on investment and how we make sure the marketing that we spend in that jurisdiction is very localized and tailored for that customer, and we see strong returns on it. Secondly, our product mix is getting fit for purpose for that local market and getting the pricing right. That really helps us with the expansion not just in South Africa, but the rest of Africa. That drives margin.
Yes. And then I can add, we've got huge cross-pollination between the International side of the business and the African side. In the last six months, we have scaled that up from the core centers — same software, risk, and fraud — so we are really seeing efficiencies coming through. Also in Africa, we've been pushing on different sports and quicker traders and so on. So it's all coming together. And we've also mentioned our trading: we're really getting stuck into the training of all the traders.
Understood. And then in the slide deck, it references Nigeria ramp-up underway to strengthen growth profile. What would success look like this year in Nigeria for you guys?
I think that Nigeria is an interesting one. We've been on the ground there. The country as a whole is doing much better. The free flow of the currency is improving. So we have to listen and double, triple our business size there at least. As you know, it's the largest population in Africa, it's a growing TAM, and we're getting our product right. We can build or buy across the west and we can do both. So that's really top of our mind.
Your next question comes from the line of Jed Kelly from Oppenheimer.
Another great quarter. Just on the margin cadence between the two segments. How should we be thinking about that, particularly in the International margins? I know you have the U.K. taxes and then you're launching in Alberta, Canada in July. Can you just give us a sense how we should be thinking about that? And then with Africa, should we expect revenue to grow faster than EBITDA over the medium term?
Great questions. First of all, on the International side, continued customer momentum. Our assumptions in the guide are definitely on organic growth; there's no aggressive persistency assumptions made. But we're also making sure that we maintain marketing discipline at around 22% for International. In Africa, that marketing percentage is much lower because of the jurisdiction and the localization of marketing. So that gives ability for the EBITDA margin to grow as revenue grows in Africa. The interesting thing is that it's a very balanced business. Even though you probably have most of the scale of customer growth out of Africa, the revenue and EBITDA margin growth is very similar.
And I could just add — this is probably a point on Alberta. It's very different regulation in Alberta compared to Ontario. Ontario was the big-bang approach: you had to move all your existing customers over onto the new software on day one before you could even market the new software. In Alberta, you can market to the new software first and have a period of about three months to move your existing customers over. So for us that is a massive difference. We tried for that in Ontario but it didn't happen at the time, but now it can happen in Alberta.
And just as a quick follow-up. How should we view World Cup net win margins relative to your historical net win margins?
You've got to hope that smaller teams draw with the bigger teams in the early rounds. The early rounds might be a little bit lower margin, but it doesn't matter because it's all about if they win on those games, what happens on the next games and most importantly, what happens in our casino. We've never had this many teams. But the plus side is the engagement with so many games — 63% more matches — and I think audience engagement across our ecosystem should be really strong.
And on the cross-sell of around 60% that you called out, I think that's the big benefit as well.
Your next question comes from the line of William Lampen from BTIG.
Maybe I can start with a little bit of a follow-up on Jed's last question. In the past, your sportsbook margins have basically peaked at around 18% to 19% cash level, maybe a little bit higher. But I guess what I'm wondering is, after you fortified the sports trading and pricing, are book-friendly months potentially going to produce higher structural sports margins now on a go-forward basis? Quick follow-up would be on the leadership team comments that you guys put in the release. Could you give us an update on where you've made hires and where you believe you're strengthening the overall business now?
All right. Okay. So firstly, on the sports margin, we put out the average of the two sports books: International and Africa. As we've fortified our pricing and the promotions we give in the sports book, we would expect months where favorites don't dominate to produce increased margin. Our trailing 24-month average is about 13.1%. Africa is higher and International is a bit lower, but we've seen increases in International. When it comes to our leadership team, it's all about having the right people in the right seats to create the best team. We appointed Kirsty Ross as our Chief Operating Officer; she was our Chief of Staff and now as COO we are seeing huge efficiencies. We also hired a former external counsel who helped us deliver the business to where it is today; we've brought him in-house and he is our Head of Commercial and M&A. And of course, as you know, we have a Chief Technology Officer. So we really have a strong C-suite. Throughout the rest of the company we've got great people as well. With the International and Africa segments, we are bolstering both. To grow and keep growing, it's about our people, our platforms, and our tech, and we need the best to help us make these decisions, and that's what we have done and will continue to do.
If the goal of some of that hiring activity is to continue driving your corporate costs and the corporate EBITDA that you've now itemized for us down? Or maybe it's something different. I'm just curious what you're driving at.
Both. It's definitely to centralize cost and to reduce third-party spend where it makes sense. Our legal costs, for example, can be large when you do M&A. With AI and scale, it's about bringing costs down and doing much more volume based on our current cost base. So it's everything, but we have to make the right decisions and have the best people to make them.
Your next question comes from the line of Chad Beynon from Macquarie.
Wanted to start with: how is Super Coin adoption going and where is this compared to your expectations? I know you said in the slide deck you have plans to roll it out further in the back half, but I just wanted to test your temperature on how this is going thus far.
Okay. So remember, we called out that adoption will take time. We've done a beta in South Africa. It's gone quite well in terms of the beta, but it is only a beta. We are obviously getting the utility of the coin in there. It will be a slow process to get it adopted, but for us it's not only about Super Coin. It's also about processing fees. In Africa, one of the single biggest expenses after taxes are processing fees, especially on the sportsbook where customers are depositing and cashing out and redepositing; those in-and-out movements cost a lot. So that ecosystem we are getting right. We'll be patient with adoption. In other markets we will bring it once we've seen how it works in South Africa and have the appropriate oversight given different legislation. We hope to bring it to other markets as soon as we get this part right in South Africa. It's new for the consumer; something new a year ago can be normal now. That's the basis of our approach.
That's great. And then with respect to the M&A environment, obviously strong Q1, you're tracking at least ahead of expectations for the year, $400-plus million of cash on the balance sheet. How are you thinking about M&A opportunities given your position of strength?
Thanks for the question. We remain highly selective on what we pursue. We don't need M&A to hit our plan. Our plan is based on consistent organic growth. M&A would be an added bonus if the right opportunity comes along at the right price, and it should be a bolt-on to improve the business overall. We look at vertical opportunities such as improving technology, product or marketing efficiencies. We're always assessing opportunities and have the right balance sheet for them, but we will remain disciplined until the right opportunity at the right price comes along.
And I always say to Alinda, we will not overpay for assets. If it makes sense, we'll do it. As you've seen, some competitors have struggled in the last five to ten years, especially after layering on debt. We maintain strong free cash flow and discipline. If we find the right opportunity, we'll do it, but we are not overpaying and that's not how we've operated.
Your next question comes from the line of Matt Weber from Canaccord Genuity.
Congrats on a strong quarter. I just wanted to ask if there's any update you could share on the Apricot transaction and just broadly how that transaction has framed your key product initiatives for the balance of the year? And then relatedly, AI — the topic of the day every earnings call — could you touch on what you are doing there?
Okay. So the Apricot transaction: we finally closed that at the end of February. We now own the IP for the sportsbook. We've moved all the development resources that supported the sportsbook into Super Group — over 100 people or even more — to become part of our team. We're starting to realize cost savings over time, but for us it's about the product. Having those product teams near our other product teams improves speed, flexibility and efficiency. Since we've exited the U.S., these teams don't need to worry about U.S. states and can focus on the markets we're in. There's lots to come from that integration.
On AI: it's front of mind for everyone. We're using it in risk control and management and in development to allow us to be more efficient and faster in deploying parts of development. It's impacting finance, reconciliation and accounts processing as well. It's enhancing efficiencies, but we have to be disciplined. Our CTO is taking the lead on making sure there's appropriate governance and custodianship behind the boundaries around this, so we are disciplined as the technology evolves rapidly.
Your next question comes from the line of Jordan Bender from Citizens.
This is on for Jordan Bender. We just want to ask about Europe. What drove the outperformance there? And do you expect this to continue throughout the year?
Yes. So Europe: as we've exited countries that didn't show a clear path to profitability, we've focused on the U.K., Spain and Ireland. In the U.K., dropping more product enhancements and the well-known brand has driven record acquisitions because our product is now competitive with major competitors. Same with Spain and Ireland: we're focused on casino and new initiatives there. It's about front-office product and a strong back office coming together. In Africa, we have a brilliant product and are improving the back office to make it as good as International. When those two work together you see retention and engagement improving, and that's what's driving outperformance.
And there are no further questions. I will now turn the call back over to Neal Menashe for closing remarks.
So thank you, everyone, for joining today's call. We are really proud of our teams across the globe and their performance this quarter. We are very encouraged by the momentum we have built earlier in the year, and we will speak to you again soon. Thank you.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.