NetEnt revenue up by nearly a third for H1

nt grew its revenues by 32% year-on-year to SEK 697.4m (£61.1m) for the first six months of 2016.

The revenue rise could at least partially be put down to the launch of 14 new customers’ casinos, including Tropicana in New Jersey, a state where the online casino games provider is partnered with every major i-gaming casino operator.

Operating profit for the six months was SEK 250.5m, an increase of 44%, while operating margin was 36%, up from 33%.

Profit after tax rose by 46% to SEK 235.2m.

A total of 21 new customer agreements were signed in the period and NetEnt CEO Per Eriksson said: “Great Britain continues to be one of our most important markets, where we keep seeing strong growth. In June, we signed a license agreement with Rank Group, one of the largest gaming operators in Europe with a strong market position in the UK. It is difficult to assess how online gaming demand will be affected by Brexit going forward.

“In the short term, we see mainly currency effects as we invoice most of our UK customers in British pounds. However, since the UK referendum, weakness in the Swedish krona against the euro has compensated for the weaker pound.”

Eriksson said in a NetEnt presentation to investors that 31 new customers are yet to launch as per the end of Q2, with growth drivers being the UK, mobile, live casino and North America, while long-term growth drivers were listed as Asia, retail and Latin America.

Slots are clearly NetEnt’s key product, accounting for 88% of gaming win as per Q2 2016.