Cherryföretagen reports impressive online growth

Public Swedish gaming company Cherryföretagen has reported a strong performance in its 2011 results with online showing an impressive 65 percent growth in revenues.

Key Performance Highlights during the firm’s fourth quarter include:

– Group turnover increased by 35 percent and amounted to SEK 142.4 million (Q4:2010: SEK 105.5 million).

– EBITDA amounting to SEK 27.9 million (Q4:2010: SEK 13.0 million).

– EBIT amounted to SEK 24.8 million (Q4:2010: SEK 10.6 million).

– Online gaming revenue increased by 30 percent to SEK 58.5 million (Q4:2010: SEK 45.0 million.

– Active online gaming customers increased 130 percent to 40 316 (Q4/2010: 17 502) with new customers increasing by 426 percent.

– Number of active customers in Online Gaming rose in the fourth quarter by 130 percent to 40 316 (17 502) and the number of new customers during the quarter increased by 426 percent to 39 739

Key Performance Highlights for Full year 2011 include:

– Group revenue increased by 24.8 percent and amounted to SEK 467.8 million (2010: SEK 374.9 million).

– EBITDA amounted to SEK 48.0 million (2010: SEK 34.2 million).

– EBIT amounted to SEK 36.6 million (2010: SEK 23.3million).

– Online gaming revenue increased by 64 percent to SEK 219.1 million (2010: SEK 133.8 million).

– Profit after tax amounted to SEK 33.8 million (2010: SEK 20.0 million).

– Registered customers increased by 143 percent to 218 502 customers (2010: 89 934).

Future plans include Cherry Malta’s application for a Malta gaming licence from the LGA and the subsequent launch of EuroSlots.com during the third quarter of 2012. The company will continue to channel its resources towards consolidating Cherry’s strong Scandinavian position in the online slot sector along with other online gaming initiatives.

Cherryföretagen chief executive officer Emil Sunvisson comments: “Cherry’s focus on growth in Online Gaming has dominated 2011, which has resulted in strong growth, with highly increased revenues and a large customer intake. I am confident that Cherry’s investments to increase growth will generate profits in the future.”

On the launch of EuroSlots.com, Marius Andersson chief operating officer of Cherry Malta said: “Europe is moving towards a patchwork of regulations and an important part will be to have a flexible platform, partly to position quickly in the market and to adapt to current regulations. The in-house platform provides opportunities for Cherry Malta to seek local licenses in all the countries that are opening up for online gaming. We can see, that over time, we will both be able to strengthen our offerings to customers and increase our margins because of our own platform, which is in line with our growth strategy in Europe for Online Gaming “.

EuroSlots.com has been developed by the same team behind Norges- and SverigeAutomaten.com.