Successful first quarter for NetEnt

Online gambling software and games provider NetEnt released its Q1-2017 results Thursday, reporting the following highlights:

* Revenues for the first quarter increased by 15.2 percent to SEK 398 (345) million;
* Operating profit was SEK 136 (128) million, an increase of 6.3 percent;
* Operating margin was 34.2 (37.1) percent;
* Profit after tax amounted to SEK 124 (122) million, an increase of 1.8 percent;
* Earnings per share were SEK 0.52 (0.51) before and after dilution;
* 15 new customer agreements were signed, a new record, and six new customers’ casinos were launched;
* Games were launched with Codere on the regulated market in Mexico;
* NetEnt announced that it will develop its first VR game and revealed two new branded game titles for 2017: Planet of the Apes and Emojis;
* The Live Casino product offering was strengthened with the launch of Common Draw Black Jack for mobile.

Per Eriksson, President and CEO said in a company report:

”We continued to deliver on our growth strategy in the first quarter and revenues increased in line with our earlier comments about the quarter. For the first time, NetEnt’s games were launched on the regulated market in Mexico and the company announced that the first game for Virtual Reality (VR) will be developed in 2017.

“For the rest of 2017, we see conditions for continued solid growth supported by new games, increasing market shares in the UK, mobile growth, many new customers to be launched and our ongoing expansion in North America.”

The company is hopeful that proposals for new gaming legislation in Sweden will set commercially viable conditions for industry participants while at the same time opening up new, substantial tax income for the government.

“We welcome such a new legislation. A modern gaming legislation that leads to a high channelization to regulated gaming forms creates a more secure environment for both players and the industry. We intend to apply for a B2B-license as an industry supplier,” a company spokesman said.

“Over the years, NetEnt has invested and built up an organization and the expertise to obtain and maintain gaming licenses. NetEnt has licenses and certifications in many European countries such as Denmark, UK, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Belgium, Estonia and Spain. Regulated markets are an important part of our growth and sustainability strategies and no other gaming supplier is present on so many regulated markets like we are.

“We continue to hire more employees and develop our platform. We strengthen the organization to increase our production capacity, enter more regulated markets and integrate a large number of new customers,” the spokesman said.

“With this in mind, we foresee an ongoing need to invest during 2017. We do this to enable continued solid growth with increasing economies of scale for NetEnt going forward – the future outlook remains bright.”

Related and similar