Unibet boosted by acquisitions and scalability as revenue hikes

Unibet has cited the impact of acquisitions and an ongoing focus on scalability across the group as two of the main reasons behind a year-on-year increase in revenue during the 12 months through to December 31, 2015.

Gross winnings revenue amounted to £354.1 million (€453.9 million/$512.1 million), up from £312 million in the previous year, while underlying profit was also up from £64.5 million to £69.7 million.

Unibet also revealed that it was able to significantly increase its number of active customers, with this total hiking from 570,360 to 921,150 – of which 156,208 were customers of businesses acquired by the operator during the period.

Stan James Online and iGame Group were amongst the companies acquired by Unibet during the 12-month period.

However, despite these gains, the operator noted that profit before tax for the full year was down from £99 million to £62.2 million, while profit after tax for the 12-month period fell from £93.4 million to £55.7 million.

Henrik Tjärnström, chief executive of Unibet, said: “We have delivered a market-leading revenue growth in the fourth quarter of 2015, generating a 43% increase in gross winnings revenue as reported in GBP compared with the same period in 2014, 57% in constant currencies.

“The focus on scalability across the group has enabled us to deliver a new all-time high in underlying EBITDA for the quarter of £27.1 million, up 47% in GBP.

“Mobile was 56% of gross winnings revenue compared with 51% in the third quarter.

“The acquisitions have also accelerated the transformation of our business and locally-regulated revenues are now 34.3% of gross winnings revenue compared with 28.4% in the third quarter of 2015.

“The UK, the world’s largest locally-regulated gambling market, is now our largest locally-regulated market.”

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