William Hill boss talks UK growth, M&A and product roadmap

William Hill reported a slightly better than expected set of H1 results yesterday, with double-digit gaming growth the driving force behind a 5% year-on-year rise in Online revenues.

And the reaction from analysts was relatively positive too. Numis, for example, described the results as robust, while Peel Hunt said Hills had demonstrated “improved momentum in the business”.

EGR Intel caught up with William Hill’s CEO, Philip Bowcock, to discuss the results in more detail and how he plans to build on the operator’s current momentum.

EGR Intel: How would you sum up William Hill’s H1 performance?

PB: It was a positive performance overall with continued progress against the priorities that we clearly set out and top-line growth across all divisions. Group revenues were up and although profit was broadly flat, that was really at the top end of market expectations. So overall we are very comfortable. If you look at Online, we saw good growth in sports wagering, which was up double-digits, the UK was up 15% before the Euro comparison and gaming revenue was up 10%.

So the underlying performance is encouraging and we are well-placed for H2 with the start of the football season in the UK and Europe. We’ve also got a couple of big boxing matches coming up and that gives us a real momentum not just for H2, but also running into the World Cup year of 2018. That positive momentum and confidence is shown in the board’s decision to increase the dividend by 4%. It’s a solid position to be in.

EGR Intel: How would you sum up your time at William Hill so far and the mark you’ve made on the business?

PB: I think it’s about focus and being focused on the basics. A great example would be the cashier, which we redesigned for the first time in four years and it’s making sure that we have that continuous improvement and we get the momentum going. Again, I think it’s just about giving people that clear focus.

Bowcock says William Hill’s underlying performance is encouraging

EGR Intel: Were you happy to see a positive reaction to the results and the share price jump?

PB: It’s always nice to see it shoot up and I think the reason is because of that underlying momentum in the online business more than anything else. It’s those numbers of amounts wagered up 15% and the 10% growth in gaming. Those sort of numbers will lead to the types of reaction in the share price you have seen.

EGR Intel: You claim to now be growing at market or above the UK market. Can you keep this momentum going?

PB: That’s not come about through any one thing but through a whole plethora of initiatives that the guys across the business have put in. It’s everything from the launch of #YourOdds through to bet navigation across the sportsbook, through to improved login processes, age verification processes, password resets and better cashiers. The whole customer experience piece of the UX has improved. I think the most important thing for me is that we’ve still got plenty of things to do. It’s not like we look at a list of initiatives we want to do and say ‘crikey, we’ve got to the end of it’. There is still an awful lot of things we can do and we just need to continue to drive through those.

EGR Intel: Do you think there will be more consolidation in the UK market going forward and does William Hill have plans to get involved?

PB: All I will say is we are focusing on our business because we’ve still got a lot of work to do around product and customers experience, and we will continue to do that. In any industry, where there are significant synergies to be taken by putting two organisations together, there is always going to be an opportunity for M&A. But at the moment I don’t see it on the immediate horizon. I think it is difficult for any deal to take place before the Triennial Review and I would imagine that is why M&A has cooled down.

EGR Intel: How have you managed to record such strong growth in gaming?

PB: It’s about turning the whole gaming experience round and making sure our customers are experiencing not just one game but they are experiencing more than one game. Cross-sell has also been a big area of focus. We’ve now got a single wallet across all of our gaming verticals, which has clearly helped; so we’re not just focused on cross-selling within the gaming verticals but cross-sell from sports into gaming and vice versa.

William Hill is currently migrating all customers across to its new front-end

EGR Intel: What’s the product roadmap going forward and when will the front-end roll out be completed?

PB: We’ve got a number of things in the pipeline. Desktop is available to new users, so people can start to use it. And what we are doing is slowly migrating people across and we will continue to do that. You have to be very careful though because there are clearly a significant number of users who have got used to the desktop product, really like it and we don’t want to annoy them. Often when you go on a new website and it says ‘do you want to try our new website’, you just stick with the one you’ve got.

EGR Intel: Finally, what are the plans for Australia moving forward?

PB: We’ve got a product-led focus there and we think we’ve got one of the best, if not the best, products around. Clearly there are some headwinds around regulation with credit betting and Point of Consumption tax, but we are going to monitor the situation closely and make sure we can adapt as we see fit. Some of the things we have done include Price Pump, which is the ability for people to enhance their bet, we’ve done a new rewards programme and refer a friend-type promotions. So we’ve done a number of things there that have really helped increase revenue per active customer.