Regulated focus sees Playtech revenues rise 33%
Supplier reports 80% of H1 gaming growth derived from regulated markets as new financials division contributes £10.6m
Playtech this morning reported a 33% rise in revenues and a 16% hike in EBITDA primarily derived from the supplier’s focus on regulated markets and continued growth in its core casino vertical.
Total revenues for the six-month period to 30 June 2015 were 286m while EBITDA came in slightly below analyst forecasts at 113m. The UK Point of Consumption (PoC) tax had a negative impact of 8m.
Excluding acquisitions in the financial betting space and when adding back the effect of the UK PoC tax, underlying adjusted EBITDA growth was 26%, in line with the 29% underlying growth in revenues.
London-listed Playtech said 80% of its incremental gaming growth came from regulated markets as total regulated gaming revenues as a share of the total figure increased from 35% to 40%.
The supplier’s flagship casino vertical contributed 148.9m of revenues, a 28% year-on-year increase assisted by new product launches such as the Playtech-powered Sky Casino, while its services division grew 21% to 73.9m.
Sports also enjoyed a strong period as revenues increased 30% to £16.1m and bingo, assisted by the launch of casino classic Rainbow Riches as a bingo variant, grew 20% to £10.1m.
The only sour note was a 19% contraction in poker, which the firm described as a “challenging vertical” impacted by “unfavourable wider market trends”. The company said the vertical, which recorded revenues of 6m, should pick-up following iPoker’s recent switch to a single liquidity pool.
Playtech also reported a 10.6m revenue contribution from its recently established financials division following the acquisition of TradeFX in April, which has since been renamed Markets Limited to more accurately reflect its diverse product offer.
It said it hoped to complete the previously announced acquisitions of Plus500 and AvaTrade in September, which Weizer said would be complementary to Markets and bring Playtech’s regulated revenue contribution past the 60% mark on a full-year basis.
“The first half of 2015 has been extremely busy and highly successful for Playtech as we have delivered on our strategy of driving growth in our gaming division whilst augmenting this growth with strategic M&A, transforming Playtech into one of the world’s largest and leading software and services providers,” Weizer said.
“Our gaming division has seen strong, broad based growth across regions and product verticals, and from both existing and new business as our strategy of focussing on regulated markets continues to drive growth,” he added.
The firm also announced it had appointed Paul Hewitt as non-executive director and will head up Playtech’s Risk and Compliance Committee as well as the Remuneration Committee.
Playtech’s share price was down 13.5p to 877.5p after early morning trading.
Meanwhile, Plus500 also released its H1 results this morning with the firm posting a 20% growth in revenues to US$127m despite recent restrictions placed on its UK business following a breach of KYC regulations.
However, EBITDA and APRU were down 23% to $55.5m and 14% to $1,362 respectively.