SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
European sports betting operator Unibet Plc has reported a strong opening to 2016, posting a ‘new all-time high’ in group revenues to £122 million representing a 61% uplift on 2015’s corresponding Q1 performance of £76 million.
Unibet governance highlighted that the company was performing way above market rate, with EBITDA (Q1 2016: £28 million) and Profit (Q1 2016 £20 million) metrics doubling in its opening quarter.
Strong uplifts in its core metrics would see Unibet gain a Net Cash increase of £31 million (Q1 2015: £16.6 million).
The Stockholm-listed operator detailed that its significant Q1 growth was a testament to its positive acquisition strategy, highlighting that acquired assets Stan James Online and iGame Group had contributed £12.8 million in gross winnings revenue and £3.1 million in normalised EBITDA.
Combined with the organic growth of the Unibet.com brand in core markets of Scandinavia and Western Europe, the operator was able to significantly boost its group active player base to + 1 million (Q1 2015: 600,000).
Confident of its 2016 financial outlook, Unibet governance stated that the company would continue to operate its scalability and cost control strategy which had allowed group core metrics to grow significantly in the past 12 months.
A pleased Henrik Tjärnström, CEO of Unibet Group, commented on Q1 2016 opening performance
“In the period up to 24 April 2016, average daily gross winnings revenue has increased by approximately 50 per cent compared to the same period in 2015, despite lower sports betting margins. Excluding iGame Group & Stan James Online the organic increase is well over 20 per cent in constant currency,”
“Gross winnings revenue in the Nordic region grew by 58 per cent, while Western Europe grew by 63 per cent (in both regions the organic growth in constant currency was approximately 40 per cent).”
“Our market leading mobile offerings are continuing to deliver strong growth and now account for 59 per cent of gross winnings revenue. Our strategy focused on re-regulation has accelerated the transformation of our business and in the first quarter almost 36 per cent of gross winnings revenue was from locally regulated markets.”
“Scalability and cost control has enabled EBITDA to grow by over 80 per cent. The profit after tax has doubled to GBP 20.0 million which shows how we are adapting our business model to absorb increased betting duties from core markets.”
