The French video game group is suffering a sharp decline in its revenues and its share price, against a backdrop of restructuring and a tense market.
Ubisoft, one of the world’s leading video game publishers, announced Thursday that it had recorded a sharp drop in revenue of 13.7% in the first quarter of its 2026-2027 fiscal year, to 268.2 million euros. This publication caused an immediate reaction on the financial markets: Ubisoft shares fell by 14.18% on the Paris Stock Exchange, to settle at 4.73 euros, in an expanded SBF 120 index down 1.50%. Since the start of the year, Ubisoft’s stock has fallen nearly 26%.
A difficult financial context
This decline in turnover comes after the group had already suffered a record loss last year of nearly 1.5 billion euros. Over the April-June period, Ubisoft also presented “net bookings”, i.e. sales excluding deferred revenues, down 9% in the first quarter, to 255.8 million euros. The drop in this reference indicator is explained by a comparison with a first quarter last year “having benefited from significant revenues linked to “Assassin’s Creed Shadows” after its release in March”, indicated the publisher in a press release.
The group, however, emphasizes doing “a little better than expected” over the period. Ubisoft anticipates a second quarter “around 370 million euros” and maintains its annual objective of “net bookings” and an operating margin down “by a high single-digit percentage”.
The group welcomed the successful launch at the beginning of July of the new opus of its flagship brand, “Assassin’s Creed Black Flag Resynced”, sold more than 3.5 million copies according to Ubisoft. This is the first title to be released under the leadership of its new subsidiary: Vantage Studios. This is “an encouraging signal” for the future of the group, noted the company’s general manager Yves Guillemot, quoted in the press release, who specifies that the title has “exceeded (its) annual expectations” in just two weeks.
As part of its reorganization, Ubisoft also closed its studios in Winnipeg (Canada) and Belgrade (Serbia) in June, and continues to reduce its workforce in its various branches such as in Barcelona (Spain), where strikes against these layoffs have taken place in recent weeks. The group is pursuing a cost reduction plan of at least 200 million euros over two years, in addition to the 300 million already granted in recent years.
Ubisoft informed the financial markets that it had stopped the development of six games, including the highly anticipated remake of “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”.
Stock market pressure and outlook
Ubisoft’s market capitalization fell to 537 million euros, its lowest level since 2012.
Asked about the abandonment of the disc format by PlayStation in 2028, during an exchange with analysts, Yves Guillemot replied that having exclusively digital consoles “would make it possible to offer more affordable machines”, in a general context of rising costs linked to the surge in the price of components. This switch “has advantages and disadvantages, but it should not disrupt the sector too much,” he said.
