7/17/2026

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Welcome to Evolution Q2 Report 2026 presentation. During the Q&A session, participants are able to ask questions by dialing pound key five on their telephone keypad. Now I will hand the conference over to the speakers, CEO Martin Carleson and CFO Joachim Andersen. Please go ahead.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the presentation of Evolution's Interim Report for the second quarter of 2026. My name is Martin Karlsson and I'm the CEO of Evolution. With me, I have our CFO Joakim Andersson. As always, I will start with some comments on our performance and then hand over to Joakim for a closer look at our financials. After that, I will conclude and then we will open up for questions. Next slide, please. So let's start with the highlights. Net revenues were Euro 517.8 million, corresponding to year-on-year decline of 1.2%, but a quarter-on-quarter increase of 0.9%. EBITDA came in at 341 million, corresponding to a margin of 65.9%. I'm overall happy with the results in the quarter. Revenue and EBITDA both move in the right direction. The margin is in line with our guidance and cash flow is strong. The volatility in Asia continues to disturb the overall picture, but we will continue to address the cybercrime challenges day by day, one quarter at a time, and I'm certain that we will eventually win. Europe saw recovery compared to the start of the year, with generally good progress across markets. Latin America continues its strong momentum, and North America also shows good growth. Live revenue improved with 0.6% compared to the first quarter, but declined 3.6% on a year-on-year basis, mostly related to Europe. At the same time, R&G revenue showed a strong 14% growth year-on-year, and it can be noted that the North American slots business performs well at the moment. In the quarter, we've launched a second studio in Michigan, which is not only hosting several game shows in the state, but also is the home of our second live brand, Azubi. And around the quarter end, we also relaunched a studio in Argentina that we acquired from a competitor earlier this year. On the product side, we have launched the first titles under our new Hasbro partnership. So all in all, pretty much business as usual. We keep grinding and moving forward. Next slide, please. Here we have our operational KPIs, first consisting of headcount and the gain rounds index. On headcount, we are growing 2.8% on a year-on-year basis and flat quarter-on-quarter. As highlighted, we have launched two new studios in the quarter and are set for yet some more launches late this year. With every new studio, we are optimizing the distribution and cost mix, and I'm happy with that. The game rounds index can be seen as a general indicator of activity throughout our network over time. It varies between quarters, but for the long-term trend, it should be increased. A session in general gets faster with small bets. The uptick in Q2 is satisfying. Very good. Next slide, please. Looking at the revenue mix by customer location, it looks exactly the same as in Q1. Europe dominates the picture, followed by North America and Latin America. As we require all our customers to carry licenses in regulated jurisdictions, all our revenues are regulated. Moving to the revenue split based on our customer's customer, which is an estimation based on the IP number of players received from our customers and purchased third-party information. North America and Africa takes a slightly larger part of the mix, whereas Asia has decreased somewhat. The estimated share of stemming from regulated markets continue to increase and now stands at 49%. Next slide, please. Now I'll go through each of the major regions based on the estimation of revenue based on our customers' IP numbers. Europe saw a recovery quarter on quarter. The regulatory subjectivity remains and generalization is very weak in a number of jurisdictions, but we have seen an increasing activity in regulated markets. Are we at an inflection point? It's too early to say, but our strong belief is that the only way to win players to the regulated portion of the market is both a balanced regulation and by offering the best and most entertaining content. In the quarter, the game show category did really good, and demand for localized content is on the rise. We continue to work hard and adapt to both the regulatory and the player needs. Later this year, we will launch a new studio in Vilnius in Lithuania. A recurring topic when speaking about Europe has been the license review in the UK, where we agreed a settlement of 4.75 million pounds earlier this week. I believe the amount is a bit high in relation to the actual issue, but I'm still happy to be able to resolve it and move forward. Throughout the review, we have continued to refine our processes and as you are well aware of, also imposed the strictest ring fencing measures among any suppliers in Europe. I can't stress this enough, at Evolution we always want to do right, we require all our customers to carry the license needed in a specific market, and we engage with the regulators to address any issues that arise. Moving to Asia, as already highlighted, unfortunately we took a step back compared to the previous quarter, We have said it before that this is a cat and mouse game and the volatility will remain. But we are not stressed. We know what the challenge is. We will continue to battle it and we look forward to see where we stand in the next quarter. Looking beyond the cybercrime issues, performance in the region was good. The regulated Filipino market is growing nicely and the regulatory situation in the region as a whole has been overall stable.

speaker
Karen Puri
JP Morgan Analyst

Next slide, please.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

The strong growth trend continues in both North America and Latin America, with an all-time high revenue in both regions. In North America, we have launched Monopoly live in New Jersey, Delaware, Michigan, and Connecticut. Originally released in 2019 in Europe, it is one of our most popular game shows globally. And with Monopoly as a very strong franchise in the US, we are excited to finally bring it to the American audience. After the quarter end, we have also expanded our presence in Alberta, in Canada, following the introduction of the regulated commercial market. Speaking of North America, I will take the opportunity to address Galaxy Gaming. As everyone is aware, the outside date of the merger agreement is today. After today, either party may choose to terminate the agreement. Two years have passed, and we have spent significant time, effort, and resources handling the administration needed to close the acquisition. I really think that Galaxy is a great company, and we have had a strong commercial relationship with them for many years. But due to its size, the transaction is not significant for evolution. That means that the outcome has no material impact on our existing business, our U.S. operations, or our long-term ambitions. We'll come back in due time on the way forward, and I will not comment further today. Moving on to Latin America, where growth remains solid. We continue to adapt our products to the local markets. And in the quarter, we have launched a localized version of ice fishing in Brazil. It is hosted by native Brazilian Portuguese speaking game presenters and is streaming from our Sao Paulo studio. A few weeks back, we also relaunched a studio in Argentina that we acquired, which I also mentioned earlier, from our competitor in Q1. It's our second studio in Argentina, and it will support continued growth in the market. We don't display a separate chart for other markets, which mainly comprise of Africa. It's a somewhat volatile region, quarter on quarter, but with a clear positive trend, and its revenue contribution is increasingly noticeable. We have a strong position as a premium lab casino supplier, but R&G is also showing good growth. Next slide, please. I've talked so much about our amazing product roadmap for 2026, so this time around, I will keep it more concise. During the second quarter, we launched the first title under our new exclusive global partnership with Hasbro, Monopoly Roulette, And earlier this week, we also launched Monopoly Rover. The initial response from both operators and players have been very strong, and I believe we are on to something really great. Looking ahead, we have many more titles to launch, but I will speak now on only one, about only one of them. This is actually not related to Hasbro, but the spin-off of our own popular funky time. starring Mr. Funky and the Disco Cat. As the name suggests, disco balls will bring a lot of action with a disco atmosphere. It will be fun and groovy and set for release during third quarter. It's our major upcoming release. And with that, I will hand over to Joakim for a closer look at our financials and then next slide, please.

speaker
Joakim Andersson
CFO

Thank you, Martin. As usual, I will now go a bit deeper into the financials, but let's start with the slide eight and our revenue in EBTA development over time. If we look at the data on the far right, we can see the Q2 revenue of 517.8 million represented by the blue bar, EBTA of 341 million in the gray bar, and the EBTA margin of 65.9% shown by the line above. It's another stable quarter that we add to the last few quarters with a small but yet positive revenue increase. Let's go to the next slide. And on this slide, we have a more detailed look at our profit and loss statement. As before, and you're getting used to this, I have highlighted the key takeaways on the slide and I will walk through them one by one. First, again, net revenues amounted to 517.8 million, down 1.2% year on year, but up 0.9% quarter on quarter. Notable here is the continued positive development on the R&D side and solid double-digit growth year on year at 14%. Second, total operating expenses were 220 million, which is 1% higher than Q2 last year, but 0.2% down quarter on quarter, which helped us expand the margin slightly quarter on quarter. Generally, it feels like we are on top of it and we manage our cost base in a prudent way. Third, with the addition of a positive financial net of 3.1 million this quarter, it all means that the profit for the period amounted to 251.4 million. And then finally, as the fourth highlight, EBS earnings per share after dilution were 1.27 euros. From this quarter and onwards, there will be a noticeable effect in the number of outstanding shares as a consequence of our buybacks. And in this quarter, we bought back 5.1 million shares. Let's move on to the next slide where I will show you the development of our cash flow. First, on the left hand side, we show our operating cash flow after investments. This amounted to 258 million for the quarter. The last 12 months cash conversion remains strong and ended up at 86% shown by the line in the same graph. The second quarter is seasonally weak on cash flow due to tax payments or low, I should probably say maybe, but we saw good progress and good positive contribution from the ongoing working capital efficiency initiatives. Turning to the chart on the right, which shows our capital expenditures. Total capex related to tangible and intangible assets amounted to 34.7 million for the quarter. This remains stable as a share of net revenues as illustrated by the black line. Next slide, please. Turning to our financial position. And as you can see, there are no major changes compared to recent quarters. We continue to be in a very strong position with total cash of 1.2 billion euros. And in the quarter, we used 303 million of our cash towards the buybacks. You can also see that the investment in the bond portfolio was repaid this quarter and booked on the cash line. Total equity amounted to 4.2 billion euros. And that concludes the financial deep dive for this quarter. Back to you, Martin, for the wrap up.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Thank you, Joachim. Brilliant. So let's summarize and then move to Q&A. I have on purpose tried to stay as much to the point as possible in this presentation. As stated, I believe things are moving in the right direction. And it's very much business as usual in evolution right now. I'm pleased with the development in Europe, North America and Latin America and Africa. And as for Asia, I believe we will come around. What I haven't mentioned yet is the share buyback, which also has been gone through by Joachim. It was initiated in May. I know you waited long for the capital allocation decision, and I can assure you that we looked at our options from every possible angle. We're confident that the 2 billion program, which, as far as I'm aware, is the largest ever in the history of Swedish Stock Exchange, is the right thing to create additional shareholder value. Operationally, as we move forward, we will minimize time and resource spent on things that don't really drive business revenue and cash flow. Our main effort will go even with a stronger focus into building world-leading games and release those on the largest online gaming network in the world, our OSS, one-stop shop. At Evolution, we love what we do and we do it with passion. And I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you Evolutioners in all parts of the world. What a great job you do. So with that, we thank you for listening. And now we open up for questions. And the final slide. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

If you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key 5 on your telephone keypad. To enter the queue, if you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Ed Young from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

speaker
Ed Young
Morgan Stanley Analyst

Good morning. I've got a tooth now, if that's okay. First of all, could you give a bit more color on Asia? I appreciate you say it. but I wonder if you could comment on what you think the background trend is in the industry or the underlying because the revenue has been sort of bouncing around in a range for a while now. Is the right reading of that that the market is flat or your growth is underlying flat or the impacts from these kind of volatile issues is greater than that? I'm just trying to get an idea of the underlying trend when you say that you're confident you'll be able to defeat this in the end. That's my first question, please.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Good morning. Nice to hear you. Asia is a large section on Earth. It's many countries, and they come together, something we call Asia. It's not as easy. It's much larger than Europe. There are many different countries moving around. I would say that there is an underlying potential growth, and the effect that we see right now is coming from cybercrime, and that is the volatility caused. We are focusing to solve that, and unfortunately, it's a little bit up and down still.

speaker
Ed Young
Morgan Stanley Analyst

Okay. And then second of all on RNG, obviously double-digit growth in the quarter. You called out North America as a good market. I just wondered if you could give a bit more color. Is there any particular game releases that are going well, or do you think this is part of the broader commercial OSS We shouldn't overvalue North America and the comment that I made there. North America in the greater scheme of things is still a small market in comparison to others. We are doing better.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

slowly building and coming to double-digit growth, which we talked about for a long time and that took a long time to get there. But we are here now and it's from the total situation in RNG, not any specific market. We're happy with that, very happy with that.

speaker
Praveen Gondhale
Barclays Analyst

Okay, thank you. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Martin Arnold from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

speaker
Martin Arnold
DNB Carnegie Analyst

Good morning, guys. My first question, what can you learn from Asia when you were here? Like in Q3 last year, you had noticeable issues with the cybercrime. And what did you learn there and any new tools that you can use this time?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

We learn a lot all of the time and the internet in general is moving forward and I think that we are in the absolute forefront and the cutting edge possibilities and even though the volatility is here, I'm quite happy with the situation that we have technically and what we are doing and I look forward to move forward from here.

speaker
Martin Arnold
DNB Carnegie Analyst

And you're not overly concerned that this will get worse before better?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

I don't guide on quarter-on-quarter growth for any region, but the volatility is still here. We are not in a stable situation as you can see.

speaker
Martin Arnold
DNB Carnegie Analyst

And on Europe, I think it was fairly broad-based recovery. Anything you want to highlight that's changed compared to the last set of results?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

No, I think that we are happy. There are still things that makes the business that we do a little bit volatile and then things will move around. But we're happy with the recovery and we're growing and you can also see that from the figures.

speaker
Martin Arnold
DNB Carnegie Analyst

It's a good quarter in Europe. And my final question is on the games pipeline. You have released some of the Hasbro licensed games, if you can mention anything on the reception so far, but Have you tilted the timing for the launches a little bit more skewed to later in the year or are you on track with the release pipeline?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

I think that the reception of the games have been actually very good. One thing that we've learned over the years is that you can see that with Ice Fishing, which is a tremendous success, it takes a little while to build that audience that we want to have. So, very, very good reception of the games that we were launching. Did we, or were we delayed with the product roadmap? I would say that the product roadmap had been a little bit tilted towards the end all along, already from when we released it. And we were, of course, wanting it earlier, but it's a little bit tilted towards the end. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Charlie Muir-Sands from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

speaker
Charlie Muir-Sands
BNP Paribas Analyst

Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions. I've got a couple, please. Firstly, just on the overall group, I know that you talk about game rounds being a long-term directional indicator, but game rounds are quite a nice pickup quarter on quarter, substantially ahead of the revenue growth. I wondered if you could sort of talk about whether there's any particular temporary or permanent mix effects. And perhaps it's related to this. I wondered if you can talk about what you're seeing in terms of currency headwinds from end player markets and whether those are starting to ease at all in any of those areas. And then the second question topic is the UK. You've obviously confirmed the settlement and the financial amount. I just wanted to get clarity that there are no further incremental technical restrictions that you've committed to have to undertake from here. I know you took some actions a while ago. And similarly, also on the UK market, whether you'd seen any particular change in market behavior since the remote gaming duty tax rate increased in April. Thank you.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

That was a little bit of everything. I will try to remember it. I mean, we're very satisfied with the Game Rounds development. As we know, entertainment is important. Short attention span is for the coming generations. So it has to be snappy, fun, really entertaining content. We can't stay with what the industry did years and years ago and think that everyone will do the same. It won't happen and we'll lose it. So Game Rounds, will need to increase more than revenue over the coming 10 years. So that you should have in the backdrop. Having that said, we're happy with the development this quarter. Joakim, you can comment on the... On the FX side, I can pick that up.

speaker
Joakim Andersson
CFO

Yes, you can read in our report, in this quote, it was a little bit less of FX headwinds on the revenue side. Uh, compared to last quarters, then if this is kind of a sustainable thing or not, I mean, that's, that's something we can't, uh, can't guess on, uh, any of us on the call, I guess, but yeah, a little bit, uh, lesser headwinds in this quarter.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

UK gaming commission. Um, uh, I mean, we, we settled with them. There is no, there's no, there's been no. changes in our way of doing business in the UK for a while, and we have no changes coming up. When it comes to the balance of the regulatory situation in any jurisdiction, not in particular the UK, but as soon as you raise the tax to a certain limit, to a certain bar, you will lose generalization. You have seen that in many jurisdictions now, such as the UK and the Netherlands. and the channelization reached 50% levels and that is not good. So we need to see to and hope for a better balance in the regulatory, what the regulators do, but it's not for ours to decide and we just act on the rules that are there and we are very respectful to those rules and we understand why they do them and of course raising the tax is negative for for the channelization.

speaker
Charlie Muir-Sands
BNP Paribas Analyst

I'm sorry, just to clarify, when you talked about the 50%, I assume you were referring to the estimates around the Netherlands, not to a new estimate for the UK?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

I didn't refer to any specific country, but if you reach channelization of 50%, it's, of course, very tough.

speaker
Charlie Muir-Sands
BNP Paribas Analyst

Okay, great. Thank you.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Ben Shelley from UBS. Please go ahead.

speaker
Ben Shelley
UBS Analyst

Hi, good morning. I've got three questions, if that's okay. The first one's on Asia. Could you just elaborate more on the cybercrime issues you're seeing in Asia and are they affecting player access, payment, operator activity or something else?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

It's the same as we commented before. It's simply that they take our product, make a copy and redistribute it. That's what they do. So they use our product in one way or the other, and they redistribute it and resell it, just like they would do with any bad comparison, but a handbag or anything else that they would make a copy and sell, they would do the same.

speaker
Ben Shelley
UBS Analyst

Got it. And then just on recent trends in Asia, have trading trends in Asia improved, worsened, or remained broadly unchanged since the end of Q2?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Sorry, what do you mean?

speaker
Ben Shelley
UBS Analyst

So have trading trends improved in Asia since the end of the quarter?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

I don't comment within the quarter. The volatility is in the quarter, as you see, and the figures are there, and we look forward to the next quarter.

speaker
Ben Shelley
UBS Analyst

Okay, thank you. And then just on Europe, Europe's return to quarter-on-quarter growth for the first time in several quarters. Do you view this as the start of a more sustainable recovery, or is it still too early to draw that conclusion?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

I wish that I had a clear answer to that. I mean, I even asked that in the telco, like, is it an inflection point? I'm happy with it. And I look forward to the next quarter. That's the best. Also Europe, that's the best I can give you on that. And better activity, nice to see.

speaker
Ben Shelley
UBS Analyst

Thank you. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Nikola Kalinowski from ABG Sundahl Collier. Please go ahead.

speaker
Nikola Kalinowski
ABG Sundahl Collier Analyst

All right. Morning, gentlemen, and thanks for taking my questions. So the first one is just on the stabilization of Europe. What would you say has contributed to that stabilization on the game show front this quarter? Has it been driven by these relatively new and popular games such as ice fishing or has the broader game shows portfolio performed strongly, would you say?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

I think that all games have performed well. Then, of course, ice fishing is a tremendous success. It's becoming one of the biggest games in the whole industry. And we have done that before and we've seen it now. So, of course, that contributes. But I don't think that we should overvalue it. It's the total situation that makes the figures.

speaker
Nikola Kalinowski
ABG Sundahl Collier Analyst

Yeah, thanks for that. And indeed, ice fishing looks to be a great game. And then just quickly, I guess, on the UK market, to the extent that you can answer this question, curious on the initial impact of this high remote gaming duty. Have you started to see a significantly negative impact from the tax hike in Q2? And has that adversely impacted your Europe revenue significantly recently?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

We don't comment on specific market in Europe as you know, but a while back we also commented on the size of UK and UK market is not really a huge market for evolution. So even with an impact, it's not that big.

speaker
Nikola Kalinowski
ABG Sundahl Collier Analyst

All right, great. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Thanks.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Monique Pollard from Citi. Please go ahead. Good morning.

speaker
Monique Pollard
Citi Analyst

Hi, Martin. Hi, Joachim. I have a couple of questions, if I can. The first question was whether you could provide any update beyond what you'd written in the press article about the article from Investigate Europe and whether it's possible to access Evolution Games on Soft2Bet from the UK IP address.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

We take all possible measures to make that not possible and we have not been able to replicate any type of gameplay that has been stated.

speaker
Monique Pollard
Citi Analyst

That's clear, thank you. And the second question I had is just about the working capital initiatives that you've been putting in place. Whether you could give us some examples of those initiatives I don't know if you're able to quantify or give us some sense of the benefits that they're providing, please.

speaker
Joakim Andersson
CFO

Yeah, sure. Thank you. I mean, we talked about this for a couple of quarters now, and we could see that the trend of accounts receivables were negative for us. We were building and tying capital in receivables up until kind of the peak, probably end of last year. So then we talked about it and I explained that we have put some more effort and more resources to really go through the AR and then making sure that our customers pay what they are supposed to pay and they pay on time. So it's kind of those initiatives that we've been working with for a few months now. And even if it takes some time and it does because it's long cycles, then now we see some benefits of that coming through. You can quantify, you can see in a cash flow statement and you can see on the AER side that that's an effect of increased efforts. So we're quite happy with it, but we continue to work with it as well.

speaker
Monique Pollard
Citi Analyst

Okay, thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Praveen Gondhale from Barclays. Please go ahead.

speaker
Praveen Gondhale
Barclays Analyst

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Firstly, on M&A, following the Galaxy development, could you just talk about your M&A pipeline? Are there any other opportunities that you are pursuing, size and scope of those opportunities? And then secondly, on cost and margins, could you just offer some steer or color on expected I constantly evaluate

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

vertically and horizontally, if there's any opportunities to acquire something. But I also firmly believe that you should deliver what you state that you should deliver. And that's why, even though we don't make a headline on it, but This quarter is the quarter of double-digit growth for R&G, and it took a while, but we're here now, and we're proud of that because we stated that we're going to do that. And that has to do with M&A, but not directly. So we're always evaluating what we could buy. When it comes to cost and margin, I think that we are happy with the progression of margin. We're in line with our guidance for this quarter, and we are in good cost control. The next question comes from Karen Puri from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

speaker
Karen Puri
JP Morgan Analyst

Hi, good morning, everyone. A couple from my side as well. First one on Galaxy Gaming, I know you mentioned it's not a very meaningful transaction, but just sort of understand better in terms of what went wrong there. That's the first question. Second one on Asia, is it possible to share some color on the competitive landscape evolution over the last 12 months? Has competition intensified or been somewhat stable? Any sort of color or data point that would be really helpful? Thank you.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

I want to give more comments on Galaxy Gaming than what I did earlier. We are on the outside date, meaning that the time period for closure is ending actually today. We will now continuously evaluate. We put a lot of resources and focus to close and handle the administrative burden that is related to this transaction. And of course, I also point out that As a matter of the size, it's not anything that is significant and it doesn't affect evolutions plans or anything else in US or elsewhere. The competitive landscape in Asia, not really changed. I don't notice much change there. There's always been a lot of competition all from the start and I think it's about the same.

speaker
Karen Puri
JP Morgan Analyst

Thank you so much.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Rasmus Engberg from Kepler Shoebrew. Please go ahead.

speaker
Rasmus Engberg
Kepler Shoebrew Analyst

Yes. Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Two questions remaining. I don't know if you can answer this, but are there any further regulatory hurdles to complete Galaxy acquisition?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

I can't comment on that right now. We will come to the decision and make an evaluation very soon. Unfortunately, I can't give you more information on that right now.

speaker
Rasmus Engberg
Kepler Shoebrew Analyst

Okay, and second question. We're approaching the end of the World Cup. Has that had any impact on you? Do you anticipate any impact from it in the second half of the year?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Very good question, to be honest. Every time we have these situations, whether it's the World Cup or the Olympic Games, we come in with it and think about that there should be a huge activity boost. Honestly, As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Jack Cummings from Barenburg. Please go ahead.

speaker
Jack Cummings
Berenberg Analyst

Good morning, all. Two questions, please. First, just on R&G. Obviously, you're now back into that double-digit growth number. You've not been there for, I think it's about three years or so. I think it was the start of 2023. Are you confident in holding that double-digit growth rate going ahead? And then my second question is on costs. You've talked about kind of cost control within the business. I think headcount was broadly flat quarter on quarter. Should we anticipate that if you get back into year-on-year revenue growth, we'll also see growth in headcount and growth in personnel expenses?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Thank you. We are happy with where we are with the RNG. We look forward to the coming quarters. I won't guide on that, but now we took it. good step forward with the 14% growth, so we're happy with that. Coming to the cost control, I think that we are still, and you saw my comment on that, we are adding studios, but we're enhancing the distribution and cost mix. And don't forget that we, during a while, had a very unfavorable cost mix and distribution. So we're coming out of that, and we are in good cost control and look forward also to that part of the year. But of course, if we see a great growth in revenue, we will also expand the cost base and expand the footprint in different markets.

speaker
Joakim Andersson
CFO

Leading us back to the margin, it's why we also guide on margin, right? So if the revenue is coming up, the cost will come up, but we will then maintain the 66% margin target.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Adrian de St. Hilaire from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

speaker
Adrian de St. Hilaire
Bank of America Analyst

Yes, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the question. First one, on your slide number 12, you say that you have an ambition to grow in line with the market in your regions in live and RNG. Do you think that's the case right now in live, or might you be underperforming the market? And then maybe for Joachim, can you talk about how much buybacks should be coming through in Q3 and Q4? I think you've spent already above 300 million euros. So how much should we expect for the remainder of the year and phase between Q3 and Q4? Thank you.

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

I think we can always do better. I expect more when it comes to live growth. So looking forward to the rest of the year. When it comes to the buybacks, Joachim will comment.

speaker
Joakim Andersson
CFO

Yeah, sure. I mean, for the second quarter now, we have kind of maxed out on what is possible. And my max is 25% of the daily volumes, the last 20 days' daily volumes. What will happen in Q3 and Q4 is difficult to say. It depends on total volumes in the market, trading volumes, so kind of mathematically, and then also on share price, obviously. So if share price goes down or up and the volume changes, then it will be changing for us as well. Having said that as well, I mean, we have a 2 billion euro program, as you know. And we, I mean, looking at the cash flow, cash what we have on the balance sheet, we couldn't spend the 2 billion tomorrow. So even if the volume would be allowing it. So it needs to be placed at the proper level. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

The next question comes from Martin Arnold from DNB Carnegie. Please go ahead.

speaker
Martin Arnold
DNB Carnegie Analyst

Yeah, hi, I just had a minor follow-up. On the Game Round Index slide, we can see that it's the highest ever in Q2 after the temporary dip late last year. I think it's up like 12% versus Q4, but your revenue is fairly flat this year. So I'm just trying to understand, is it like mainly driven by the new game shows that would lower bet amounts or is it also an improvement in the more traditional live table games that you see here?

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

I'm very satisfied with the development. There's always some lags. It's not only about game rounds. It's not only about how many plays are on the tables and so on. There's a lot to it and the different markets. The development of the game rounds is good and it's all time high and I'm very happy with that. It looks good. Okay, thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

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

speaker
Martin Karlsson
CEO

Thank you very much for listening. I appreciate all your questions. Look forward to see you soon again. And I look forward to Q3. Thank you.

Disclaimer

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