NetEnt – mobile applications fuel growth

Exciting 12 months are behind the gambling industry, where some profound transformations took place. Some countries such as Romania have opened up and regulated their entire sector for sports betting and online casinos. Likewise more and more players access the smartphone or tablet, in order to go beyond the mobile casino of their own passion at the game machines. The Swedish manufacturer of automatic games and live casinos Games NetEnt has also benefited from all these developments and has once again been able to present very strong figures for the last quarter and for the entire 2016 financial year. In the period between October and December, the company increased its own sales by a whole 23.9 percent compared to the same period last year and thus generated some SEK 400 million. Net operating profit was also very positive, with NetEnt also announcing a significant increase of 28.1 percent to SEK 156 million. It was even better for the game machine developer even with the so important profit after taxes, because here the income from formerly 115 million SEK climb by 29.6 percent to 150 million SEK. In addition to all the outstanding balance sheet figures, the CEO of Sweden, Per Eriksson, also pointed to a lot of new contracts concluded in the last quarter of the year. 13 new customers were convinced of the high quality of their own NetEnt game machines. As the largest growth driver for the good quarterly figures, once again the rapidly growing area of ​​the mobile casino crystallized out and now around 43 percent of all games are made via smartphones or tablets.

The CEO, Per Eriksson, has once again explained in detail how important it is for NetEnt to expand its own products outside its home region in Scandinavia. In the first half of the year, sales in the UK were the first to take the lead in the various markets, in which NetEnt is active.

NetEnt also posted record numbers for the year as a whole

In addition to the presentation of the quarterly figures, there was no reason for Per Eriksson to distribute any bad news about NetEnt’s business activity. The producer of online casino games also took over all the records in the overall development over the past year. The company’s total turnover in the 12 months of 2016 grew by a smooth 28.5 percent to 1.455 billion SEK. This strong increase had, of course, also a positive impact on operating profit and profit after tax. EBITDA thus rose by 33.4 per cent to SEK 536 million and earnings rose by 34.9 per cent to SEK 504 million. Through the very strong last three months of the year and numerous deals with online casino operators about the delivery of their own NetEnt slot machines and live casino content, the contracts concluded a new best value for the entire year. A total of 45 customers worldwide decided to take over the games of the Swedes into their own portfolio, of which 31 customers will complete the implementation work only this year.

One of these customers is the operator of the well-known Novoline Casinos Quasar Gaming. He announced at the beginning of December that the popular NetEnt gaming machines, such as GONZO`S QUEST or GUNS`N ROSES, the best slot machine in 2016, will also be included in the offer for the next few weeks and months And SIZZLING HOT.

NetEnt intensifies the entry into the field of the gaming and game banks

According to Per Eriksson last year, a total of three areas were decisive for the continuing famous growth. On the one hand, the long-term strategy, especially in regulated markets such as the UK, or Romania, Portugal or Bulgaria, has been paying off on the positive development of the whole industry in these countries, and on the other hand, Live casino content, and their ability to adapt to mobile devices such as smartphones, is an important leadership position for these two extremely strong business units within the online casino sector. But NetEnt would not have been so successful for years, if they had not already cast an eye on the future gold pits of the industry. Toward the end of last year, the Swedes dared to jump out of the digital world of virtual gaming halls and entered the Italian market of gaming machines in cooperation with the German game maker Gauselmann. Here, for the first time, the players on the Mediterranean will have the opportunity to play well-known NetEnt slots like STARBURST on a German money machine. A future project for the Swedes is the virtual reality and the implementation of gambling for the upcoming VR casinos. This new form of internet casinos will surely require a while before they are given a similar ranking as today’s popular online gambling halls, but the Swedes want to be there again from the beginning. With the fantastic GONZO`S QUEST VR prototype for 3D glasses such as the Oculus Rift, the NetEnt has already been able to provide open mouths with the announcement that the game will be ready to be launched this year Still a little of the competition show the long nose.