Online gambling technology provider NetEnt is celebrating following a “very eventful” second quarter.
The Stockholm-listed operator reported revenue up 32.3% to SEK 271.2m (US $32.1m), operating profit up 63.3% to SEK 92.7m ($11m) and profit after tax up 64.9% to SEK 86.5m ($10.2m) in the three months ending June 30. For the first half of 2015, revenue is up 34.6%, operating profit gained 61.7% and profit after tax rose 63%.
The second quarter saw NetEnt ink nine new licensing agreements while launching services with eight new customers, the latter group including Bwin.party, PokerStars, Gamesys and Danske Spil. NetEnt inked its first two deals in New Jersey’s regulated online gambling market, was awarded operating licenses in Spain and launched its first retail games deal with UK operator William Hill.
NetEnt CEO Per Eriksson noted that Q2’s operating margin had risen 6.5 points year-on-year to 34.2%, an improvement he attributed to “growing revenues and economies of scale, offsetting continuing investments in new staff, product development and new markets.”
Eriksson said NetEnt had handled 6.5b transactions during Q2, a rise of 26% from the same period last year. Mobile gaming was also up sharply, accounting for 23% of Q2’s total game win, a 10-point improvement year-on-year.
Since the quarter ended, NetEnt announced it has struck a licensing deal with Coingaming.io, a white-label Bitcoin online casino platform provider. The deal marks the first Bitcoin-only provider to strike a deal with NetEnt and Coingaming communications director Mark McGuinness said Bitcasino.io would be the first of Coingaming’s B2B partners to launch Netent’s portfolio of over 150 HTML5 games, including 30 mobile titles.
