Bet-at-home preps for slow summer as Q1 revenues climb 23%
Operator boosts marketing budget by 69% to cope with absence of major international football tournaments in 2017
Bet-at-home.com has reported a 23% rise in Q1 2017 revenues after increasing its marketing spend by more than two-thirds to propel the operator through a slow sporting summer.
Revenues for the three months ended 31 March 2017 stood at €37.2m, up from €30.3m in Q1 2016, which the firm attributed to “continuous investments in the brand.”
The Betclic Everest-owned firm said its 2017 marketing focus was set in motion in Q1 due to the absence of international football tournaments, with expenses increasing 69% year-on-year to €14.9m.
In the first four months of 2017 the operator launched a vast TV campaign in Germany and Austria to complement its sponsorship agreements with Hertha BSC and Schalke 04.
“With the strong marketing focus in Q1 2017, bet-at-home.com further strengthened its popularity of the brand and developed the customer base on an amount of 4.7 million,” IR Manager Klaus Fahrnberger told EGR Intel.
“The strong growth in revenue shows furthermore the clear outperformance of the online gaming market and the strong potential in the future of the online gaming market [for bet-at-home],” Fahrnberger added.
However, the significant increase in marketing spend led to a dent in bet-at-home’s Q1 profits, which fell from €7.5m in Q1 2016 to €5m this year.
In February bet-at-home was listed on the Deutsche Borse SDAX index, with the aim to “further establish itself in the index in line with the current capital markets strategy.”
Commenting on today’s results, CEO Franz Omer said: “Bet-at-home once again showed its strength, and could outperform the dynamic growth of the successful previous quarters.”