Playtech has performed a u-turn on their social gaming industry plans on the same day they released yet another set of impressive results. Total revenues for the first quarter of 2012 increased 104 percent to €75.1 million with gross income up 90 percent to €88.4 million. The software supplier’s videobet revenues performed very impressively and showed a rise of 171 percent to €2.4 million with all verticals apart from poker giving the firm an increase in revenues.
Speaking following the results call, CEO Mor Weizer said: “Playtech has made an excellent start to 2012. Year-on-year growth across all our products has been strong, with the exception of poker. The services division is performing ahead of management’s expectations, which has provided us the confidence to agree a discounted accelerated payment of the PTTS acquisition’s initial consideration, whilst also looking increasingly certain to trigger the additional consideration threshold. We expect the services division to continue growing as the exciting opportunities in markets such as Germany and Spain come on stream. Although we anticipate a seasonal slowdown during the traditionally weaker summer months, I believe that the Company is well positioned to maintain the momentum into the rest of the year.”
On the social side of things they’ve adapted the terms of a Memorandum of Understanding from acquisition to a licensing agreement and in the process slowed the progress of the deal. The sudden change of tack will again set alarm bells ringing as the latest deal involves buying assets from largest shareholder Teddy Sagi. The UK nationals are already sniffing around and as they move towards a FTSE 250 listing it won’t be until all their dealings are under the business pages microscopes.
As for the social gaming industry it’s unlikely that Playtech cooling their interest has anything to do with how well this sector of the industry will do. After all, the innovation could come from the already fast-growing social gaming industry and it will mean more joint ventures and acquisitions might not be far off for Playtech.
