The company’s growth reached 11.7% for the year, down on 28.5% in 2016, but it was still enough to ensure the company’s goals of growing at a rate faster than the European gaming markets are accomplished. Furthermore revenue increased from SEK 1,455.1m (£123m) in 2016 up to SEK 1,625m (£137m) during 2017 ensuring that NetEnt enjoyed a successful year.
Explaining the company’s growth in 2017 NetEnt CFO, Therese Hillman, said: “The target to grow faster than the market fits with NetEnt’s vision to drive the development of the digital casino market. We also want to grow faster than the market average. NetEnt achieved a good rate of growth in 2017, even though it fell in comparison with recent years. Growth was lower in the key Scandinavian markets, but we grew faster in regulated markets, such as Italy. The business continued to generate strong cash flows due to increased revenues and good profitability”.
Operating profits were also up to SEK 587.1m (£49.73m), an increase of 8.7% from the same period last year which only saw profits of SEK 535.9m (£45.4m). Earnings per share also increased by 16% from SEK 2.1 (£0.18) to SEK 2.5 (£0.21) which should help further encourage investors.
Increased profitability was a result of NetEnt both entering and leaving various international gaming markets amidst concerns to changing regulations and evaluated profitability’s. The three new markets which NetEnt has expanded into include Mexico in North America and Serbia and Croatia in Europe. Also this year the company phased out its delivery of games to markets which had begun to see negative impact on revenue such as Poland and Australia.
Björn Krantz, Chief Commercial Officer at NetEnt, said: “Our industry is heading towards more regulation. The balance between keeping a scalable global business model and taking local market conditions into account is a key item on my agenda”.
Another key item on NetEnt’s agenda was dealing with growing concerns of gender/diversity inequality. Currently the company employs 39% women and 61% men company-wide, with an active pledge to change those figures to 50/50 by the end of 2020. This is yet another example of the companies mission statement of being an industry leader in all aspects of its business.
Chairman of the Board, Vigo Carlund added: “Revenues, profit and cash flow rose in 2017 and the company followed its long-term strategy for growth by entering several new regulated markets. I am also delighted to see that the number of shareholders in NetEnt continued to increase, reaching a total of 16,350 by the end of the year”.
