Corsair Raises 2026 Outlook After Q2 Earnings and Reports Stronger Margins

Corsair Gaming (NASDAQ: CRSR ) released second-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Thursday. Read the complete transcript below. This transcript is brought to you APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit for a consultation.

2%. Gamer and Creator Peripherals segment revenue grew 13% year over year, with significant contributions from Fanatec and new product launches. The company announced the acquisition of Track Racer to enhance its SIM racing hardware portfolio. Elgato Marketplace experienced significant growth, with transactions and revenues more than doubling year over year.

Gaming Components and Systems segment saw a 9% decline in revenue due to elevated memory pricing, but gross profit increased by 17% due to strong performance in memory. 47 billion, and adjusted EBITDA between $121 to $131 million. Management expressed optimism about strategic partnerships and upcoming gaming releases like GTA 6 as growth catalysts. Direct-to-consumer sales accounted for 20% of revenue, emphasizing its importance for profitability and customer engagement.

Full Transcript OPERATOR Good afternoon and welcome to Corsair Gaming's second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the speakers' prepared remarks, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. To ask a question at that time, please press star then one on your telephone keypad.

I would now like to turn the call over to David Pascal, Investor Relations. Please go ahead. David Pascal, Investor Relations Thank you, operator. Good afternoon everyone and thank you for joining us today.

With me on the call are Thi La, our Chief Executive Officer, and Gordon Mattingly, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind you that today's discussion contains forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, our guidance for the third quarter and full year 2026, potential future growth in certain product categories and other statements that are not historical in nature, are predictive in nature or depend upon or refer to future events or conditions. These forward-looking statements are based on our current assumptions and expectations. Actual results could differ materially.

Please refer to the risk factors in our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the SEC, our subsequent SEC filings and today's earnings press release for a full discussion of the factors that could cause our actual results to differ. We undertake no obligation to update these forward-looking statements. Additionally, we will discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures today. com.

With that, I'd like to now turn the call over to Corsair's CEO, Thi La. Please go ahead. Thi La, Chief Executive Officer Thank you, David. And good afternoon everyone.

We are pleased to report strong results for Q2. Our core business outperformed expectations and we are raising our outlook for the rest of the year. Based on our recent performance, Corsair is becoming a more profitable, more cash generative company. We are improving the quality of our revenue, gaining share in the right categories and building platforms for growth beyond the traditional PC cycle.

I want to share the five numbers that tell the story. Gross profit for the quarter grew 21% year over year. 2%. Gamer and Creator Peripherals revenue for the quarter grew 13% year over year.

9%. 1 million year over year, so more of our gross profit gains reached the bottom line. 8 million and we are raising our full year 2026 outlook, which Gordon will review in a few minutes. Let's talk about Gamer and Creator Peripherals.

This segment was again our standout. 9 million. Gross profit grew 27% year over year to $52 million. 9%.

This is the mix shift we've been working toward: faster growth in categories that carry stronger margins and deeper customer relationships. Fanatec remained a key driver, supported by new products, wider distribution and strong direct-to-consumer sales. Fanatec has also carried gross margins above the segment average, so its growth improved both scale and quality. We are building on that with the acquisition of Track Racer, a complementary SIM racing hardware brand with a strong direct-to-consumer model.

It broadens our product range, extends our distribution and brings experienced leadership into our SIM Solutions group. Our licensing strategy is also growing the Fanatec platform. We recently announced a partnership with Nissan, adding another global automotive brand alongside our existing motorsport relationships. These partnerships reinforce Fanatec as the premium platform for SIM racing.

Elgato, Stream Deck and Marketplace are evolving from creative tools into a broader workflow platform. In the first half of 2026, Elgato Marketplace revenue and transactions each more than doubled year over year. Product submissions grew more than 300%. The Marketplace added more than 500,000 new accounts, which is impressive growth on all metrics.

The flywheel is working: more users attract more developers, more products increase the value of Stream Deck, and that value drives both hardware demand and recurring revenue. AI-assisted development is making it easier to build new profiles and plugins, which we believe should speed this up further. This quarter we made a minority investment in Bitfocus, a professional show control software company already integrated with Stream Deck. This extends Elgato from the creator desktop into broadcast, live events and control rooms.

These are all higher value professional environments with a coordinated go-to-market path. As part of the agreement, Corsair and Bitfocus also established a partnership under which Stream Deck Studio and the broader Stream Deck range will serve as preferred and primary control surfaces across Bitfocus customer deployments. We are excited to build on our relationship and expand our growth opportunities. 5 million.

As elevated memory pricing continues to delay DIY PC builds, we believe this demand is deferred, not lost. When builders have historically delayed an upgrade, the need didn't disappear; it built up and it returned as pricing and the product cycle normalized. 3%. Memory net revenue grew 17% year over year on strong supply chain execution and share gains in North America.

Our memory inventory is now properly sized and supply availability remains adequate. Systems was a bright spot too, with solid year over year growth in AI workstations. This isn't a pivot; it's a natural extension of capabilities we've built over decades in high performance system design, customization, overclocked memory, advanced water cooling and power delivery to support the hottest GPUs. We are targeting the roughly $22 billion desktop AI PC market, focused first on prosumers and small and medium businesses that want local compute, data security and lower cloud cost.

The significance of this opportunity to the company's operation remains early and GPU allocation is tight. Accordingly, we believe revenue contribution will pick up in the latter part of 2027 and beyond. Looking ahead, our investments remain focused on strategic revenue growth with accretive margin, ecosystem value with recurring revenue and workstation market opportunity. This is why we chose to direct capital toward M&A and strategic partnerships this quarter, including Track Racer and Bitfocus, which we believe will extend our platforms and further diversify our business.

We will continue to prioritize these opportunities where we see the clearest path to durable higher margin growth while remaining disciplined on price and integration risk. With GTA 6 expected to launch in Q4 2026, we see a meaningful tailwind for console products and are positioned to capture demand around one of the industry's most anticipated releases. With that, I will turn it over to Gordon to take you through the financials. Gordon Mattingly, Chief Financial Officer Thank you, Thi, and good afternoon everyone.

The second quarter showed strong conversion of gross profit improvement into earnings and cash generation. We're excited about our progress and the momentum we are building in our business as we continue to execute and build shareholder value. I'll provide some additional color on the quarter and our outlook before opening the call for any questions. 3 million, above the assumed midpoint of our guidance range and down 2% year over year.

2%. 9 million a year ago. 3 million in the prior year quarter. 16 a year ago.

5%. 01. 6 million to GAAP gross profit from refunds of tariffs previously paid under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. This delivered approximately 500 basis points of benefit to gross margin.

13. 07. 07 respectively. Following receipt of these amounts, the company is materially complete with the tariff refund process, although it may receive immaterial administrative adjustments or interest in future periods.

9 million. 9% from 40%. The improvement reflects growth in higher margin categories including SIM racing and continued momentum across gaming peripherals and streaming products, as well as the tariff refund. 5 million, reflecting the market-wide pressure from elevated memory pricing on DIY builds and standalone components.

6%. Strong performance in memory, led by strong demand, market share gains and continued strong supply chain management helped drive this improvement along with the refund benefit. Systems also showed year over year momentum led by AI workstation demand. Direct-to-consumer, or D2C, represented 20% of revenue in the quarter.

D2C is a priority for us because it carries better unit economics, gives us richer end user data and creates a deeper relationship with our customers while benefiting our cash conversion. Fanatec and Track Racer also increase our presence in this structurally attractive channel. 7 million. That discipline allowed more of the gross profit improvement to reach operating income and adjusted EBITDA.

8 million, reflecting both strong earnings and disciplined working capital management across inventory, receivables and vendor terms. Notably, in the first six months of the year alone we generated more operating cash flow than all of 2025 and 2024 combined. This is a clear sign of the traction we are gaining in this area and one we plan to build on. 1 million.

Our stronger balance sheet increases our flexibility to invest in organic growth, pursue disciplined strategic acquisitions, repurchase shares when attractive and manage leverage appropriately. We will continue to pursue a combination of those levers as we work to expand growth and profitability and drive shareholder value. 12. The outlook assumes continued low double-digit year over year growth in Gamer and Creator Peripherals led by Fanatec, Elgato and Stream Deck, with a higher margin mix and continued direct-to-consumer progress supporting consolidated gross margin.

Gaming Components and Systems is expected to be down low double digits year over year and will remain pressured by elevated memory pricing and delayed DIY demand, although supply availability is expected to remain adequate. For the full year 2026, we are raising our outlook. 94. 47 billion.

The assumed midpoint of our adjusted EBITDA range is also up approximately $19 million compared to the midpoint of our prior guidance range of $100 to $115 million. To close, we are encouraged with our continued business momentum and the progress we are making to increase the quality of Corsair's earnings. Our diversified portfolio of leading brands continues to perform strongly. We are entering the second half with stronger financial capacity, improving mix and a broader set of growth opportunities.

We believe that combination positions us well to compound earnings and cash flow and create long-term shareholder value. Operator, that concludes our formal remarks. You can now open the call up for Q&A. OPERATOR Thank you.

We will now open the line for questions. To ask a question, please press star and then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star and then two. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up.

We'll pause for a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question is from Erin Lee of Macquarie. Please go ahead. Erin Lee, Analyst at Macquarie Hey, good afternoon.

Thanks for taking the question. Wanted to start with guidance. The midpoint of the 2026 EBITDA guidance range went up by about $19 million, which is more than the $14 million tariff benefit and the 2Q beat versus the midpoint of the guide, which would imply a strengthening of the back half outlook. So can you just talk about what's changed in your expectations for the second half and what the major drivers are?

Gordon Mattingly, Chief Financial Officer Yeah, sure. You're absolutely right, Aaron. This is Gordon speaking. The increase in the guidance of about $19 million.

If we look at the midpoints, the Q2, the beat was roughly $17 million, of which $14 million was attributable to the tariff. So roughly about two and a half from Q2 and then for the rest of the year. The updated guidance is a reflection of a combination of the improved business performance we're seeing with our organic business and then a small amount from the Track Racer acquisition. Not pretty material there, but it's those things really combining that make up the $19 million increase at the midpoint.

Erin Lee, Analyst at Macquarie Okay, gotcha. That's helpful. And then with regard to the Track Racer acquisition, can you just talk a bit about the growth potential, the integration timeline and any synergy benefits with Fanatec or the broader organization? Thi La, Chief Executive Officer Yes.

So with regards to—hey Erin, good to hear from you. With regards to the integration phase, it should be a pretty quick one. We think it's going to take about three to six months to integrate our system infrastructure. What's going to be really meaningful is just really getting the roadmap alignment between the two business units.

We've folded SIM racing into one entity, if you want to call it that way, and the Track Racer products will fold underneath the Fanatec brand umbrella. Fanatec is known for all of the electronics like wheel, wheelbase, pedals—anything that requires software—and Track Racer is all mechanicals: cockpits, accessories.