Betsson starts to see fruits of mobile labour
CEO says growth is "encouraging" following focus on channel, Oranje mobile product coming soon
Betsson chief executive Magnus Silfverberg (pictured) says he has been encouraged by the growth in mobile penetration across the Group’s B2C brands during the first three months of the year.
According to its Q1 2014 results released this morning, the percentage of revenues derived through the channel grew from 12% to 15% sequentially, and this figure is higher still for certain brands.
“It’s very encouraging to see growth in the brands we have been focusing on, such as Betsson.com which has grown almost 900% from last year and with more than 20% of revenues now derived from the mobile channel,” Silfverberg told eGaming Review.
Betsson has lagged behind some of its rivals in mobile “ William Hill this morning revealed 45% of sportsbook revenues came through mobile “ however over the past 18 months the company has invested heavily in an attempt to bridge that gap.
During this period Betsson has launched a number of mobile products, such as the October release of native casino and sportsbook apps for Betsson.com, which have helped mobile revenues grow from 0% to 15%.
“And we expect this to grow even further during the World Cup as events with a lot of mass market interest normally see high mobile penetration,” Silfverberg said.
Silfverberg admitted that the absence of any Nordic countries in this summer’s World Cup will reduce the importance of the tournament to the operator “ Betsson is largely reliant on Nordic-based business with 79% of gross profits derived from the region in Q1.
However, the operator still plans to ramp its marketing strategy in the coming weeks with “all of our planning right now focused on the World Cup”.
“Of course it is still important but it’s less important than it would have been if Sweden, Norway and the other Nordic countries had qualified,” he said.
One country to have qualified for the World Cup is the Netherlands and Silfverberg said he hoped to increase the Dutch customer base of its Betsson and CasinoEuro brands by placing them on to the affiliate network owned by the recently acquired Oranje and Kroon Casino.
“We are introducing them to the internal affiliate network that Oranje and Kroon owns, which means that we will get more customers to these brands for the Dutch market,” he said.
Silfverberg also added that a mobile product was under development for Oranje whilst plans are also underway for the migration of the brand onto the Betsson platform.
Oranje and Kroon added SEK23.4m in revenues during Q1, despite only becoming an active part of the business on 4 March. Betsson said this would have amounted to SEK80.7m had it been effective from the start of the year.