Bwin.party Q3 revenues down 21% as slump continues
Operator looks to poker relaunch, mobile and New Jersey launch to boost revenues as all four verticals show decline
Bwin.party has recorded a 21% year-on-year decline in Q3 revenues with all four verticals in decline as the operator once more attributed the drop to its shift from “volume to value”.
Revenues for the three months ended 30 September 2013 fell year-on-year to 145.7m from 184.4m and despite the relaunch of its partypoker brand in early September, poker suffered the biggest dip during the period with revenues down 37% year-on-year to 23.3m.
Bingo fell 18% to 12.2m and casino and games declined 23% to 50.1m, but sports betting was also “softer than expected” after it saw a 10% drop in revenues to 52.9m which the operator partly blamed on poor football league results across Europe.
The company blamed the results on its continued focus on regulated markets and the effect of ISP blocking in Greece which resulted in a 75% fall in casino wagers from Greek customers.
However, CEO Norbert Teufelberger said there were still reasons for optimism after making significant cost reductions and the launch of its new poker product in dot.com markets noting average daily revenue for the six weeks to 11 November were up 18% versus the average for the previous quarter.
“All verticals have grown despite the continued impact of ISP blocking in Greece,” Teufelberger said.
“We now expect to exceed the 70m target for 2013 that was communicated at the beginning of the year and this will help us to mitigate some of the impact from Greek ISP blocking which began during August,” he said.
“In the US, we received our transactional waiver from the Division of Gaming Enforcement in New Jersey on 8 November and are on-track to launch poker and casino as soon as we are cleared to do so,” he added.
The operator has also said it is to increase its focus on its mobile offering, including the launch of a new mobile casino product next year, after seeing an increasing amount of its business coming through the channel.
“This update isn’t as bad as feared and without the ISP blocking in Greece would have been better than anticipated, with current trading showing encouraging signs and could be further aided by new mobile product launches in Q4 and any recovery in the groups sports margin,” Panmure Gordon analyst Karl Burns said.
“However, consensus forecasts are likely to come back with the negative impact of ISP blocking in Greece by 3-5m,” he added.
Today’s results follow a 16% year-on-year decline in revenues posted in the operator’s H1 results following regulatory changes in Germany and delays in technology developments.
At the time of writing bwin.party’s share price had fallen 3p to 121p.