Gambling.com Group hit by regulatory headwinds and Google update in Q4
Fourth quarter revenue drops 30% as full-year performance impacted by Sweden and UK
Gambling.com Group today reported a Q4 revenue decrease of 30% driven by regulatory changes and updates to Google’s search algorithm.
Fourth quarter revenue fell to €3.44m, down from €4.94m in the same period last year, as the affiliate’s UK and Swedish activity declined by 12% for full-year 2019.
Q4 adjusted EBITDA dropped by 32% to €180k, as new depositing customers (NDCs) halved to 13,618, down from 25,133 in the prior corresponding period.
The fourth quarter impact was made worse by Google’s core algorithm update in September 2019, causing Gambling.com Group’s brand search rankings to fluctuate.
Other publicly-listed affiliate firms – including Jersey-based XLMedia – were damaged by the update.
Charles Gillespie
Informing investors, Gambling.com Group CEO Charles Gillespie said: “The fourth quarter was challenging for the group.
“In line with the industry at large we saw the headwinds from regulatory changes in the UK and Swedish markets continue as well as unusually low sports margins.
“In addition, changes to Google search algorithms negatively affected search performance in the quarter. Paid traffic remained at very low levels as we review the profitability of the channel.”
Annual revenue increased by 6% to €17.3m as markets outside of Sweden and the UK grew by 112%.
Gillespie said the SEO team’s quick response to the Google update had seen search traffic begin to recover into 2020, while a newly designed CMS system to improve customer-facing sites is scheduled to go live at the end of February.