Future plc has reported a startling drop in profits in its half-year results as revenue also fell.
The Bath-headquartered media firm said for the six months ended 31st March 2026, group revenue was £349.1 million, down 8% on the corresponding period a year earlier.
Profit before tax dropped 67% from £56.6m to £18.4m.
The FTSE-listed owner of titles spanning tech, gaming, homes and lifestyle – which owns TechRadar – promoted former CTO Kevin Li Ying (pictured) to the top job in March 2025 months after CEO Jon Steinberg said he would leave the role.
Later in the year, chair Richard Huntingford announced that he would step down after the annual general meeting in February 2026, ending an eight-year stint leading the board.
In January it announced that it had acquired women’s fashion and lifestyle publisher SheerLuxe Ltd and BLUSH Talent MGMT in a £39.9m deal.
Future said that if the acquisition had occurred on 1st October 2025, the half-year figures would have been £354m and £19.7m, respectively.
Future said B2C – the group’s largest division – saw organic revenue decline of 6% for the period, driven by previously announced reduction in programmatic advertising and eCommerce affiliates – with growth in direct advertising and good performance in other revenue lines supported by the execution of its strategic initiatives.
Go.Compare revenue declined 6%, reflecting anticipated lower car quote volumes compared to the heightened activity in Q1 2025, combined with a challenging home market.
B2B revenue continues to be challenging, it added, with a 7% organic decline. The decline was driven by education, retail and financial services, with strong growth in tech.
“I am encouraged by the strategic progress we have made in the half-year despite the challenging backdrop, which impacted trading in programmatic advertising and eCommerce,” said Li Ying.
“In the age of AI, our trusted, human-originated and specialist content is more important than ever. We are making meaningful progress leveraging our market-leading AI-visibility as a new source of revenue through products such as Future Optic, which offers tailored generative AI optimisation services to leading brands across verticals, and Signal, which is our multi-channel ecommerce solution for an AI world.
“We are also harnessing Go.Compare’s strengths, technology and innovation to further enhance its market position.
“We are focused on continuing to progress our brand and content strategy to become brand destinations to drive renewed organic growth, ensuring we amplify our significant audience reach and diversify into faster growing segments.
“With our innovative and growth mindset we create new monetisable products and deploy them across our brands, whilst continuing to optimise legacy revenue streams.
“We remain financially disciplined. Where brands and assets don’t deliver the platform effect, the board will look to unlock value from them.
“There is much more to come and we are confident that our strategy will return Future to sustainable growth.”
Future returned £52.9m to shareholders during the period, comprising £36.9m through share buybacks (HY 2025: £39.5m) and dividends of £16m (HY 2025: £3.7m).
On 1st April 2026, there was just over £20m remaining on the £30m share buyback programme.