Zeal Network has reported a “good start” to 2021, with the company increasing its revenue, profitability and achieving a strong gross margin.

During the first quarter of 2021, billings for Zeal rose by 17% to €163.3m ($197.3m), with the company’s Germany segment amounting to almost all of its total.

Revenue had increased by 19% to €22.6m and again Germany was the most productive area for the company as it totalled €21.1m. Zeal's gross margin in Germany increased slightly to 12.7%.

During the fiscal period, the company gained 156,000 new registered customers in Germany.

Adjusted EBITDA rose to €4.6m, while EBIT and net profit reached €2.4m and €2.5m respectively.

Zeal CFO, Jonas Mattsson, said: “We are pleased that, following the LOTTO24 takeover, the business model change and the organisational adjustments, we will again be able to publish truly comparable figures in the current and previous reporting periods with the first quarter of 2021.

"In addition, we already demonstrated in the past year that we are capable of exploiting market opportunities, adapting to dynamic environments and continuously fine-tuning our business model. We are consistently continuing along this path.”

Zeal says for the remainder of the year, the company plans to continue expanding and expects billings of around €700m, and a revenue of at least €95m.