Philweb recovery continues

Philippines e-game operator Philweb has posted a set of positive half-yearly results, reporting that in H1-2018 revenues soared 165 percent to P172.6 million (US$3.2 million) as the company continued to rebuild following regulatory hassles in past years (see previous reports).

EBITDA turned positive in the half-year, breaking its negative trend since 2016 when the company ran afoul of Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte and was denied licensing.

Company president Dennis Valdes attributed the improvement to new and additional games from online gambling provider Habanero and an increase in the number of Philweb EGM outlets.

Philweb can now boast its system is in use at 54 locations, whilst the addition of Habanero games gives more choice to players; Philweb also offers RealTime Gaming products.

“We are pleasantly surprised that the combination of two gaming softwares has not resulted in one cannibalizing the other, but instead, has resulted in growth for both sets of games,” said Valdes. “We intend to use this learning to continue to introduce new gaming software to our pool of customers, so that we can continue to attract new players to our e-Games outlets.”

Philwen chairman Gregorio Ma. Araneta III applauded the efforts of all Philweb employees for growing revenues whilst cutting costs. He pledged a deep commitment to getting PhilWeb back to its former profitability levels, during which times the business paid out high dividends to stockholders and generated significant share price increases.

“We believe those times will come back soon, as operators gain more trust in our service quality and PAGCOR sees the consistently increasing remittances that we deliver to them for their various charitable programs,” he said.

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