Malibu Boats Inc. reported a loss in the fiscal second quarter ended December 31 due to a sales decline of 6 percent and higher labor and materials costs.

Second Quarter Fiscal 2026 Highlights Compared to Second Quarter Fiscal 2025:

  • Net sales decreased 5.8 percent to $188.6 million.
  • Unit volume decreased 9.5 percent to 1,106 units.
  • Gross profit decreased 32.9 percent to $25.1 million.
  • GAAP net (loss) income decreased from net income of $2.4 million to a net loss of $2.5 million.
  • GAAP net (loss) income available to Class A Common Stock per share (diluted) decreased from net income of $0.12 to net loss of $0.13 per share.
  • Adjusted EBITDA decreased 52.5 percent to $8.0 million.
  • Adjusted net (loss) income per share decreased from net income of $0.32 to net loss of $0.02 per share on a basic weighted-average share count of 19.1 million shares of Class A Common Stock.

The boat maker kept its guidance unchanged for the fiscal year. The company’s boat brands include Malibu, Axis, Cobalt, Pursuit, Cobia, Pathfinder, Maverick, and Hewes.

“We exceeded second-quarter revenue expectations, despite a challenging retail environment and are optimistic entering the early boat show season,” commented Steve Menneto, president and chief executive officer of Malibu Boats, Inc. “The broader retail environment is performing as expected, and customer response to our new model-year boats has been encouraging. We were pleased with the close of our Malibu Year-End Sales event, which saw strong interest across key customer segments. While demand remains choppy, we are operating efficiently, seeing success in our centralized sourcing model, and maintaining disciplined production and healthy dealer inventory levels. We continue to enhance the customer purchase experience and support our dealer partners, who are encouraged by the ongoing rollout of MBI Acceptance, our white label financing partnership across our brands.”

“Through our variable cost structure and operational excellence, we were able to generate positive free cash flow during the second quarter despite a softer market backdrop, continuing to provide us with ample capacity to fuel our capital deployment priorities,” said David Black, Chief Financial Officer of Malibu Boats, Inc. “Consequently, we expanded our opportunistic share repurchase program and completed $21 million in share repurchases during the quarter. Overall, we will continue to take a balanced and prudent approach to capital allocation, looking for ways to drive growth and deliver value to our shareholders.”

Net sales for the three months ended December 31, 2025, decreased $11.7 million, or 5.8 percent, to $188.6 million as compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024. The decrease in net sales was driven primarily by decreased unit volumes across all segments, resulting primarily from lower wholesale shipments, and driven by an unfavorable model mix in our Malibu segment and an unfavorable segment mix overall, partially offset by a favorable model mix in our Cobalt and Saltwater Fishing segments and inflation-driven year-over-year price increases. Unit volume for the three months ended December 31, 2025, decreased 116 units, or 9.5 percent, to 1,106 units as compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024. Our unit volume decreased primarily due to lower wholesale shipments across all segments, driven by lower retail activity.

Net sales attributable to our Malibu segment decreased $3.5 million, or 4.7 percent, to $70.6 million for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024. Unit volumes attributable to our Malibu segment decreased 12 units for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024, primarily due to lower wholesale shipments driven by lower retail activity during the period. The decrease in net sales was driven by lower units and an unfavorable model mix, partially offset by year-over-year inflation-driven price increases.

Net sales attributable to our Saltwater Fishing segment decreased $4.8 million, or 6.8 percent, to $65.3 million for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024. Unit volumes attributable to our Saltwater Fishing segment decreased 35 units for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024, primarily due to lower wholesale shipments driven by lower retail activity during the period. The decrease in net sales was driven by lower units, partially offset by a favorable model mix and year-over-year inflation-driven price increases.

Net sales attributable to our Cobalt segment decreased $3.4 million, or 6.0 percent, to $52.6 million for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024. Unit volumes attributable to Cobalt decreased 69 units for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024, primarily due to lower wholesale shipments driven by lower retail activity during the period and our dealers’ desire to hold less inventory. The decrease in net sales was driven primarily by lower units, partially offset by a favorable model mix and year-over-year inflation-driven price increases.

Overall consolidated net sales per unit increased 4.1 percent to $170,544 per unit for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024. The increase in overall consolidated net sales per unit was driven primarily by a favorable model mix in our Cobalt and Saltwater Fishing segments and inflation-driven year-over-year price increases, partially offset by an unfavorable model mix in our Malibu segment and an unfavorable segment mix overall. Net sales per unit for our Malibu segment decreased 2.4 percent to $137,686 per unit for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024, driven by an unfavorable model mix, partially offset by inflation-driven year-over-year price increases. Net sales per unit for our Saltwater Fishing segment increased 4.7 percent to $231,730 per unit for the three months ended December 31, 2025, driven by a favorable model mix and inflation-driven year-over-year price increases. Net sales per unit for our Cobalt segment increased 14.8 percent to $169,264 per unit for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024, driven by a favorable model mix and inflation-driven year-over-year price increases.

Cost of sales for the three months ended December 31, 2025, increased $0.6 million, or 0.4 percent, to $163.5 million as compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024. The increase in cost of sales was primarily driven by higher per unit material and labor costs of $2.4 million, $3.0 million and $7.0 million for the Malibu, Saltwater Fishing, and Cobalt segments, respectively, partially offset by a 5.8 percent decrease in net sales due to lower unit volumes. The increase in per-unit material and labor costs was primarily driven by higher prices due to fixed-cost deleverage across all segments, a model mix that corresponds to higher per-unit costs in the Saltwater Fishing and Cobalt segments, and inflationary pressures.

Gross profit for the three months ended December 31, 2025, decreased $12.3 million, or 32.9 percent, to $25.1 million compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024. The decrease in gross profit was driven by lower net sales combined with increased cost of sales for the reasons noted above. Gross margin for the three months ended December 31, 2025, decreased 540 basis points from 18.7 percent to 13.3 percent, driven primarily by fixed cost deleverage across all segments due to lower sales and higher per-unit labor and material costs.

Selling and marketing expenses for the three months ended December 31, 2025, increased $0.1 million, or 1.4 percent, to $6.1 million compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024. The increase was driven primarily by higher personnel-related expenses. As a percentage of sales, selling and marketing expenses increased 20 basis points to 3.2 percent for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to 3.0 percent for the three months ended December 31, 2024. General and administrative expenses for the three months ended December 31, 2025, decreased $5.7 million, or 21.5 percent, to $20.8 million, as compared to the three months ended December 31, 2024, driven primarily by decreases in legal fees, incentive pay, and stock-based compensation expense. As a percentage of sales, general and administrative expenses decreased 230 basis points to 11.0 percent for the three months ended December 31, 2025, compared to 13.3 percent for the three months ended December 31, 2024. Amortization expense remained flat at $1.7 million for the three months ended December 31, 2025.

Fiscal 2026 Guidance
For the full fiscal year 2026, Malibu anticipates net sales to be flat to down mid-single digits year-over-year, and adjusted EBITDA margin ranging from 8 percent to 9 percent.

Image courtesy Malibu Boats