Gala Interactive hints at further international expansion

Gala Interactive remains open to the prospect of further international expansion as it continues to bed down its recent Swedish launch, its managing director Per Widerstrom told eGaming Review.

Widerstrom said the Gala Coral subsidiary hasn’t ruled out further geographical diversification but stressed that the focus remained on its two current markets, the UK and Sweden.

“We are keen to make sure we leverage what we believe are the success recipes in the Swedish market and I think that will be the number one focus,” Widerstrom said.

“We want to succeed in Sweden as we have done in the UK but one should not exclude that there could be further international expansion,” he added.

Gala Interactive fully launched the Sweden-facing Gala last month ““ its first foray outside of the UK ““ and Widerstrom said he was confident the brand has the strength to perform well across multiple territories.

“We are opportunistic in terms of how to build shareholder value but when it came to the Swedish market we clearly believed that Gala was a great fit.

“But no one should exclude that there could be alternative ways to enter other markets if we do so in the future but with Sweden there was no doubt we should do so with the Gala brand.”

Widerstrom’s comments come after a strong set of Gala Coral Q2 results which saw Gala Interactive brands Galacasino.com and Galabingo.com perform well as spend per active and stakes increased on both sites.

The growth, he said, could be traced back to Gala’s decision to re-launch the brands and call upon the services of Playtech and its provision of new platforms.

“Since we re-launched the brands under a new regime we have seen profitable growth, particularly in the light of some reports and communications from some of the other competitors,” Widerstrom said.

“So in what some are calling a difficult market our results have been very positive,” he added.