Unibet boosted by acquisitions and scalability as revenue hikes
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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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