12th Sep 2013 12:50
LONDON (Alliance News) - 32Red PLC Thursday reported a jump in first half profits and revenues, and increased its interim dividend by 33% to 0.8 pence per share, saying it's also confident of meeting full year expectations after a strong start to the second half.
The online casino, poker and bingo gaming company said that strong trading at its casino business boosted revenues and profits in the first half of the year. It also said its seen a strong start to second half trading, with underlying revenue for the first 10 weeks up 27%, and is confident it will meet full year trading expectations.
The company reported a pretax profit of GBP1.3 million in the six months ended June 30, up 12% from GBP1.1 million a year earlier including start-up losses in Italy of GBP600,000. Revenues rose 15% to GBP19 million, from GBP16.5 million.
Casino revenues, which generated 91% of the group's underlying revenue in the first half of the year, rose 17% to GBP16.9 million. The group said that it saw strong growth in active returning players, up 34% in the first half to 42,455 players, although the number of new casino player fell 7% in the period.
It said that its mobile casino business continues to grow, and now represents 17% of total casino revenues, attracting approximately one third of all new players. It said that this is partly due to the migration of its existing online customers and the launch of the HTML5 online casino platform.
32Red said that early trading in the Italian market, which it entered at the end of last year, has been slower than expected, but hopes its recently signed exclusive partnership with Italian football club Bologna FC will boost the profile of the brand in Italy. Under the agreement, 32Red will become the club's official casino partner for the next two seasons.
The online gaming company also said its net cash at the end of June was GBP6.3 million, from GBP4 million a year earlier, due to receiving approximately GBP1.25 million in damages and costs from litigation in respect to its trade mark action against members of the William Hill Group.
32Red shares were up 2.2%, or 1.25 pence, at 59.50 pence a share Thursday.
By Rowena Harris-Doughty; [email protected]; @rharrisdoughty
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