April 29 - Unibet Group, one of Europe's leading gambling service
providers, has released its financial report for the first quarter of 2008, and
showed a net profit loss of 73%, down to 2.2? million GBP.
Countering these poor figures, however, are statistics showing that Unibet
achieved a 45% increase in gross winnings revenue to 31.3 million GBP. This was
mainly due to the company's growing success in the online gambling industry.
Revenues from casino, bingo, games and poker topped 20 million GBP - a sharp
increase of 63%. Revenue from sports betting increased by 19%.
Unibet lost nearly 6 million GBP in currency exchange fees when it acquired
Maria Holdings last year - a direct result of the weakening Pound against the
Euro.
Petter Nylander, CEO of Unibet said about the Q1 results, "During the first
quarter of 2008, we have seen healthy growth for the group both in terms of
gross winnings and profit from operations. With marketing cost under control and
the operational integration of Maria Holdings substantially completed according
to plan, together with our new site launched in all markets, we are now focused
on achieving the financial targets for 2010."
Industry experts predict that the launch of Maria Bingo in Finland during
this year's first quarter is expected to have a positive impact on future
financial results.
While home base Sweden was traditionally the company's strongest market, this
has now been overtaken by Southern Europe, which makes up 30% of its customer
base. Other Nordic countries, besides Sweden, made up 19% of the company's
market.
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