Konami's games division grows 14% in Q1 as eFootball soars

• Konami Q1 revenue rises 7.7% to $656m, led by digital entertainment.
• Games division grows 14%, now contributing over three-quarters of total earnings.
• Gaming & Systems revenue plunges 22.5%, hit by tariffs and shipping delays.
• Operating profit climbs 10.3% to $187.5m despite hardware slump.

Revenue at Japanese publisher Konami rose 7.7% year-on-year to ¥96.96 billion ($655.9 million) in Q1 FY2026 driven by strong growth in its games division and titles like eFootball.

The company’s lateset financials showed ¥73.32bn ($496m) over the period came from its Digital Entertainment business, comprising video games and related content. 

This marked a 14.2% Y/Y increase and represented more than three-quarters of the publisher’s overall earnings for the quarter.

Gaming & Systems sales dropped 22.5% to ¥7.51bn ($50.8m), swinging to a ¥166m ($1.2m) loss for the quarter, attributed to increased material costs and shipping delays, particularly in the US due to new tariff measures. 

Konami's overall operating profit climbed 10.3% to ¥27.73bn ($187.5m).

Continuous growth 

eFootball remains one of Konami’s biggest drivers after surpassing 850m downloads across PC, console and mobile. 

The publisher has extended its partnership with FIFA to host FIFAe competitions in 2025 and 2026, including the FIFAe World Cup on mobile and console. The events will feature open global qualifications and more participating nations.

Last year’s tournament drew over 14m online players, with finals representing 16 nations in mobile and 18 in console, and the console final reaching a record 400,000 peak concurrent viewers for an eFootball event.

Konami’s partnership with FIFA brings its ties closer to the world football organisation, after EA ditched the FIFA IP for its own football games, renaming them to EA Sports FC.