XLMedia finds its mark in North America with $73.7m revenue projection

Having achieved broad success in 2022, XLMedia (XLM) expects its financial performance to fall in line with pre-close expectations, anticipating steady revenue growth of 9.7%.

With its full year results for 2022 due for publication in March, the sports betting publishing company foresees revenue of $73.7m (2021: $66.5m) and Adjusted EBITDA of between $16.1m and $16.6m.

A London AIM-registered business, XLMedia’s core focus of late has been in North America, where the firm has been finding most of its success, having secured access to18 states including the newly launched betting market of Ohio.

The group’s operations in North America were particularly bolstered by the continued rollout of regulated sports betting in the US, with early 2022 seeing New York go live, whilst Maryland joined the fray in November 2022.

As a result, sports revenue has risen by 72% to a projected $54m (2021: $1.4m), whilst income for the Sports and Gaming division has likewise increased 27% to an anticipated $69.6m (2021: $54.6m), with EBITDA expected between $17.5m and $18m.

2022 proved to be a transformative year for XLM, seeing CEO Stuart Simms step down from the role with Marcus Rich and David King taking on leadership as Chairman and CEO respectively, whilst its H1 report in July showed continued financial improvements, particularly on sports, betting and gaming.

However, outside of sports and sports betting the group’s casino operations have taken somewhat of a downward turn, having fallen from $23.2m in 2021 to $15.6m according to its estimations.

XLM explained: “The casino business progressed the rebuilding of its sites during 2022, delivering increasing audience, growing new depositing customers, and building new tail revenue from its revenue share deals. As expected, old tail revenues declined further in the year, although overall total revenues stabilised in the second half of the year.”

The same can be said of ‘non core revenues’, which fell by 65% to £4.1m (2021: $11.8m), with its Personal Finance assets in particular experiencing decline of 78% from $8.7m to $1.9m.

Due to the troubles encountered by the division, XLM has been mulling a sale of the asset as part of a wider business recognition that would see a greater emphasis placed on betting and gaming.