Nazara is back in profit after a year of big losses

A year ago, Mumbai gaming company Nazara Technologies was in the red, which means losing money. Now it is back in the green. On 26 October 2026, Nazara reported a profit of Rs 35.4 crore for July to September 2026. In the same three months of 2025, it had a loss of Rs 33.9 crore.

Its sales also jumped. Revenue, which is all the money a company earns from selling its stuff before paying any costs, hit Rs 803.2 crore. That is the highest Nazara has ever earned in a single quarter, says the company's own results announcement.

So what changed? Two new game makers joined the team, and one very big bad number from last year went away. Here is the story in simple words.

First, who is Nazara?

Nazara is a gaming company from Mumbai. Nitish Mittersain started it in 1999 as an online gaming portal. Over the years it bought many game makers. Its family includes WildWorks, the maker of Animal Jam, and Curve Games. In 2018 it bought a majority stake in Nextwave Multimedia, the Chennai team behind the World Cricket Championship mobile games. In 2019 it bought into Paper Boat Apps, which makes the kids' learning app Kiddopia. In March 2021 its shares started trading on the stock market, so anyone can buy a small piece of it.

Most of its gaming money now comes from players outside India. In 2025, its leaders said more than 90% of gaming revenue came from abroad, mainly the UK and the US.

A quarter? What is that?

Companies report their numbers every three months. Each three-month block is called a quarter, like the four innings of a long Test match. Indian companies count their year from April to March. So July to September 2026 is called Q2 FY27, the second quarter of the 2026 to 2027 financial year.

How big was the jump?

Revenue rose from Rs 526.5 crore a year ago to Rs 803.2 crore, according to Inc42. Nazara itself calls this a 53% rise. Inc42 calls it nearly 52%. If you do the sum yourself, 803.2 divided by 526.5 gives a rise of about 52.6%, so both are rounding the same number in different ways.

Compared with the quarter just before, April to June 2026, revenue rose about 87%, from Rs 428.8 crore. In that earlier quarter, Nazara had a loss of Rs 82.5 crore.

The profit number is also written in slightly different ways. Inc42's story says Rs 35.4 crore. Nazara's announcement rounds it to Rs 35 crore and calls it "profit after tax from continuing operations", which means profit from the businesses it still runs. Profit after tax is what is left after paying every cost and every tax, like the money left in your pocket after buying chai, bus tickets and lunch.

Who are BlueTile and BestPlay?

These are the two new game makers. Nazara's announcement says they became part of the group from 1 August 2026. In just those two months, they brought in Rs 329 crore of revenue, 49% more than in the same period a year earlier.

Think of a samosa stall that buys the busy chai stall next door. The next month, the stall's total sales shoot up, partly because of the chai. That is what happened here. Take away the Rs 329 crore from BlueTile and BestPlay, and the rest of Nazara earned about Rs 474 crore this quarter.

The founder of BlueTile and BestPlay, Raymond A. Stauffer, also took charge as Nazara's CEO on 16 September 2026, the company says. The older studios grew too. The announcement says Nazara's existing gaming studios grew revenue by 11% on their own.

This video looks at Nazara's new CEO and its bet on BlueTile.

Watch on YouTube

Wait, why was there a loss last year?

This is the most interesting part. The loss a year ago was not because people stopped playing Nazara's games. It came from one big write-down.

Nazara had put money into Moonshine Technology, the parent company of the online poker app PokerBaazi. Then India brought in the Promotion and Regulation of Online Gaming Act, 2025, which bans real-money online games, where players bet money to win money. PokerBaazi had to stop that business.

So Nazara cut the value of its Moonshine investment by Rs 914.7 crore in July to September 2025. This cut is called an impairment.

Here is an easy way to picture it. Say you bought a rare cricket card for Rs 1,000. Then the card is suddenly banned from all trading, so nobody will buy it any more. You write in your notebook that the card is now worth very little. You did not lose cash that day, but your notebook shows that your stuff is worth much less. That drop is an impairment.

Inc42 says this kind of big cut "skewed" last year's numbers. In plain words, it made the year-ago quarter look much worse than the normal business was doing. That is why the jump from a Rs 33.9 crore loss to a Rs 35.4 crore profit should be read carefully: a big one-time cut last year, plus two new studios this year, explain much of the change.

What is EBITDA, and why does it matter?

EBITDA is a long word for a simple idea. It is the money a business makes from its daily work, before paying interest on loans, taxes, and before counting how old machines and past deals lose value. It shows how healthy the day-to-day business is.

The company says EBITDA grew 93% to Rs 120 crore. The EBITDA margin rose to 14.9%. So out of every Rs 100 of sales, about Rs 14.90 was left from daily work. A year ago the figure was about Rs 11.80, because the margin went up by 3.11 percentage points.

Which games did well?

The company's announcement names a few winners:

• Mobile games earned Rs 550 crore, up 167%.
• Gaming as a whole earned Rs 656 crore, about 82% of all revenue.
• Kiddopia grew revenue by 21%.
• WildWorks grew revenue by 41% with new Animal Jam content.
• Love Island: The Game was number one among free role-playing games on the US App Store in July.
• Human Fall Flat has crossed 60 million players in its 10th year.

Over the full six months from April to September 2026, revenue grew 20% to Rs 1,232 crore, the company says.

What does this mean for young gamers in India?

The 2025 ban on real-money games hit Nazara's poker investment hard. Today, games played for fun bring in most of its money: gaming made up about 82% of revenue this quarter. And most of the gaming money comes from abroad, mainly the UK and the US, so an Indian company earns a lot from gamers far away.

It also shows how one law can change a company's numbers almost overnight. A business is not only about games. The rules of the game matter too.

This older video shows founder Nitish Mittersain talking about his plans for Nazara.

Watch on YouTube

This post explains company results only. It is not advice to buy or sell any share.

Sources

• Inc42: Nazara swings back to the black in Q2
• Equitybulls: Nazara's Q2 FY27 results announcement
• Entrackr: PokerBaazi write-off pushes Nazara into losses in Q2 FY26
• MediaNama: Nazara Q2 FY26 results and the Rs 914.7 crore impairment
• Wikipedia: Nazara Technologies
• Cover photo: Playing video game with smartphone, by Santeri Viinamäki, CC BY-SA 4.0