SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Swedish operator Unibet has been hit by the exchange rate fluctuations across Europe, meaning that the company’s Q4 results are much flatter than its performance suggested.
As it is listed on the London Stock Exchange, Unibet declares in pounds sterling, with gross winning revenues of £78.0m for the quarter, only slightly up on the £74.4m generated in Q4-2013. However in Swedish Krona, gross winnings was SEK917.4m compared to SEK784.8m in Q4-2013.
Henrik Tjärnström, CEO of Unibet, explained: “Compared with the fourth quarter 2013 this quarter is significantly influenced by exchange rate movements on Unibet’s main currencies. If the average exchange rates for the fourth quarter 2013 were applied to this quarter, gross winnings revenue would be approximately £84.5m. Excluding the effects of exchange rate movements and excluding Kambi’s contribution the underlying growth in gross winnings revenue was 16 per cent compared to the fourth quarter 2013.
“In spite of a sports betting margin below the long term average, Unibet’s markets continue to show strong growth and profitability. Also our mobile offering continues to grow and is now over 43 per cent of the gross winnings revenue.”
The total number of registered customers has continued to increase and exceeded 9.7 (8.6) million at 31 December 2014, whilst at 30 September 2014, over 9.5 million customers were registered. For the fourth quarter of 2014 the number of active customers amounted to 570,360 (516,799) compared with 573,074 for the third quarter of 2014.
The gross margin for pre-game sports betting before Free Bets for the fourth quarter of 2014 was 11.0 (12.4) per cent. The gross margin for total sports betting for the fourth quarter of 2014 before Free Bets was 7.8 (8.3) per cent. The gross margin for total sports betting for the fourth quarter of 2014 after Free Bets was 6.7 (7.4) per cent.
Tjärnström added that performance has been good since the turn of the year: “In the first five weeks of the first quarter average daily gross winnings revenue has increased by approximately 5 per cent in GBP and approximately 16 per cent in local currencies over the same period in 2014.”
