23rd May 2018 14:14
LONDON (Alliance News) - Stride Gaming PLC on Wednesday said it has "strong foundation" for future growth as it swung to profit and grew revenue in the first half of 2018 financial year.
The online gaming operator made a pretax profit of GBP3.9 million in the six months to the end of March, swinging from a pretax loss of GBP881,000 posted for the same period the year before.
In the first half of 2017, Stride Gaming booked an impairment of GBP10.2 million.
The company managed to cut its finance expenses by more than a half to GBP464,000 from GBP906,000, but administrative costs grew to GBP9.7 million from GBP7.8 million.
Revenue climbed to GBP43.9 million year-on-year from GBP39.3 million. Revenue generated on the in-house proprietary platform came in 25% higher at GBP29.7 million compared with GBP23.8 million the prior year while revenue from third-party non-proprietary platform was down by 2.0% at GBP15.1 million versus GBP15.5 million.
Stride Gaming said the number of funded Real Money Gaming players reduced by 6.0% to 153,000 from 162,000 in the first half of 2017, and yield per player increased by 11% to GBP141 from GBP127.
The company proposed an interim dividend of 1.3 pence, up 8.0% from 1.2p paid the year before.
"I'm delighted to report that Stride has delivered a good performance in the first half of the year," said Chief Executive Eitan Boyd. "Stride's progress has been underpinned by ongoing and increased investment in our product, marketing, proprietary technology and people, laying even stronger foundations for future growth."
Shares in Stride Gaming were trading 11% lower at 180.00 pence each on Wednesday.
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