NetEnt eyes LatAm expansion
Swedish slots supplier also plans to launch a new mobile live casino product this summer
NetEnt is examining growth opportunities in three Latin American countries which are expected to regulate online gaming in the near future, eGaming Review has learned.
The Swedish supplier’s CEO, Per Eriksson, told EGR the firm was investigating Brazil, Mexico and Colombia as potential growth markets for the company.
“Latin America starts to become more interesting than a year ago, as we see these countries moving toward regulation for casino”, Eriksson said.
“Brazil, Mexico and Colombia are especially interesting markets when it comes to mobile penetration. I was told 130% mobile penetration in Colombia for example and that’s a country with 49 million people. The opportunity is not insignificant.”
Mobile is becomingly increasingly important for NetEnt, accounting for one third of total game win in Q1 2016 – a year-on-year jump of 21% – and Eriksson said the firm is investing heavily in the channel.
In particular the provider is planning to launch a new mobile live casino product in the summer which Eriksson said will be “completely different to what is on the market today”. The firm currently only offers live casino on desktop.
“I can’t say too much, but the streaming capacity will be much crisper and sharper,” he claimed. “It will be viewable in both portrait and landscape and let the user zoom in and out so they can see the details more clearly like the roulette ball bouncing round the wheel. We’re also looking at sound quality and we think we can improve in pretty much every area.”
Eriksson claimed that the live casino product wouldn’t cannibalise NetEnt’s core slots product, while also giving opportunities for cross selling through themed studios and bonusing.
“We see mobile live casino as an opportunity to boost our revenue even further and this will be a very nice boost on the strong top line growth we already have,” he added.