SunBet leaning on land-based customer base to challenge online rivals
SunBet CEO Simon Gregory believes its parent company Sun International’s land-based footprint is providing it with a key advantage as it competes with established online rivals in South Africa.
SunBet, which is live in Namibia and Botswana, as well as its home market of South Africa, where the company has lofty ambitions to double its online market share, despite competition from leading brands like Super Group’s Betway, and Hollywoodbets.
“We’re not as big as Betway or Hollywoodbets, but we have a solution that is highly competitive with those, and we can offer more rewards and to harmonise their gambling play between the casinos online,” Gregory tells iGB in a post-H1 earnings interview.
Gregory estimates SunBet is “probably third or fourth” largest online offering in South African, sat behind the two established incumbents.
Betway has been in South Africa since 2017, while Hollywoodbets launched its online offering in the market back in 2006.
Despite not having yet cracked the top two, Gregory believes SunBet’s integrated offering gives the operator a strong platform to compete against the market leaders.
But in its efforts to establish a leading position as a digital offering, the company is leaning on its well-established land-based loyalty programme.
Sun International accounts for around 50% of the South African land-based market, operating 11 casinos across eight of the country’s nine provinces.
Gregory describes the relationship between SunBet and Sun International’s land-based business as mutually beneficial, with each side strengthening the other through various omnichannel capabilities.
“We have certainly benefitted, or both of us have benefitted from an omnichannel solution,” Gregory adds. “We’re able to trade off the strong cultural heritage that Sun International has in the gaming space.
“We have nigh on 50% of the casino industry in South Africa, and that certainly enabled us to provide a trusted, branded solution online and allow land-based customers to play with us, get the same rewards and to harmonise that product offering over the online solution.”
Gregory’s comments echo those of Sun International CEO Ulrik Bengtsson, who previously told iGB in May: “Increasingly we’re talking about one proprietary customer ecosystem where we sort of help each other with various sort of offers and manage the customer within that platform or ecosystem.”
Intense online competition in South Africa
Sun International reported group income growth of 7.4% to R6.58 billion ($400.4 million) in its H1 earnings, released earlier this month.
This was largely driven by a 35.5% year-on-year increase in SunBet revenue to R1.18 billion, while its land-based channel also returned to growth for the first time in three years.
On the company’s post-H1 earnings call, Bengtsson noted an opportunity to convert more of Sun International’s land-based customers into SunBet users.
Gregory says SunBet’s strategy for converting customers hinges on leveraging Sun International’s large customer database and long-established loyalty programme.
“Look, we’re fortunate to have a large database of gamblers,” he adds. “We’ve got the oldest loyalty programme in the country, I think, of any industry.
“So we’ve got a large database and we’ve been making sure that Sun International’s land-based customers are aware that Sun International has an online offering that is attractive and competitive.”