The latest report, released by the popular gaming company Ladbrokes, shows that during 2014, the digital operations have achieved an impressive growth. A few hours ago, the company announced that the full-year profits grew by 70%. As for the revenues, they rose 23% YOY.
Richard Glynn, the soon-to-leave Chief Executive of Ladbrokes, commented on the outstanding performance and defined the previous year as “pivotal”.
Mr. Glynn also added that the efforts put in having a successful year definitely paid off and the changes that were implemented had a positive impact on both the company and its customers.
The digital net revenues increased by £40 million to reach £215.1 million in 2014; the operating profit for 2014 reached £14 million, which was regarded as a great accomplishment as well. In comparison, the numbers reported in 2013 were £8.2 million. Yet, despite the reported increase, the revenues reported in 2012 can hardly be reached.
Except for the business ventures in Australia and Spain, the online sportsbook net revenue was reported to be £84.8 million or in other words, an increase of 21% was noticed.
As a matter of fact, Ladbrokes partially owes its successful year to the launch of Mobenga. The mobile platform had a great contribution to the increase of the mobile stakes.
The performance of the sportsbook during the fourth quarter of the year was defined as the “worst ever football daily loss on record”. During that time, the revenue declined by 7%.
The casino net revenues, however, declined by 1.6%YOY and gaming analysts pointed the migration to Playtech as a main reason for the decrease.
Although the first half of 2014 was a really difficult one, things were significantly improved in the second half when the casino net revenues jumped by 13%.
It seems like the condition of the poker game remained the same and the pessimistic forecast of the market analysts turned out to be true. As much as £1.7 million were generated from poker in 2014, which means that the decline year-on-year was 57%.
Those who are familiar with the ventures of Ladbrokes know that the company has recently expanded its business in Australia and the result from that expansion is £2.6 million in profit and £34.6 million in net revenues.
Although the UK-based branch of Ladbrokes had a really successful year, the markets in Spain, Belgium and Denmark could not manage to report satisfactory revenues.
The surprising growth of the digital affairs of Ladbrokes, however, did not affect the retail sector in a positive manner. Actually, the revenue was £1.2 billion, while the operating profit declined and reached £125 million.
