Mybet to "rethink" digital strategy after 2014 decline
Operator admits it has failed to keep pace with market leaders after online sports betting stakes fall 5.3%
German operator mybet said its digital channels have fallen behind those of its market rivals after revealing online staking fell by 5.3% during 2014 in its full results announcement this week.
Despite a strong general performance by the firm’s sportsbook, online stakes experienced a 5.3% year-on-year decline to 100.6m and online’s total betting share fell from 59% to 54% with mybet’s retail arm posting a strong performance for the year.
Thanks to a 2.5% rise in margin to 15.7% in its online sportsbook revenue actually rose 13% to 15.8m for the twelve months ended December 2014, but the firm admitted its digital performance had been sub-par for the year.
“The mybet platform has been unable to keep pace with the performance of the market leaders over recent years,” the firm admitted in its annual report.
Despite the relaunch of its mobile offerings last summer, mobile accounted for just 10% of online revenues.
The firm hopes to increase this figure to somewhere between 20% and 30% by the end of the year, and is undertaking a comprehensive rethink of its digital strategy.
“In the medium term, mybet expects to be able to attract more online customers again,” the report read. “Extensive optimisation of online products are planned to significantly boost the appeal of the online platform.
“However in view of the complexity of this overall process, we will not begin to reap the benefits until later on in the current 2015 financial year,” it added.
There was some good news for mybet last month as it announced a return to profit and a 10% like-for-like increase in full-year 2014 revenues across the wider business.
The company’s online casino and poker segment saw revenue decline 6.4% to 21.9m, while active online users also declined 14.3%, in part because of exits from locally licensed markets.