Ramped up marketing spend boosts bet-at-home H1 profits
Betclic Everest company posts 28% YoY increase in GGR and 22% rise in profits as it invests heavily in World Cup acquisitions
Bet-at-home reported a 28% year-on-year rise in H1 2014 gross gaming revenue (GGR) today on the back of an 8m increase in aggressive increase in international advertising during the World Cup.
Total advertising spend increased by 48% in the period from 16.6m in H1 2013 to 24.6m in 2014 as the operator sought to expand its international brand exposure during the World Cup in Brazil.
As a result the Betclic Everest Group subsidiary recorded GGR of 53.1m in the six months ended 30 June 2014, up from 41m during the same period last year.
And despite the 48% increase in advertising expense the Frankfurt-listed operator was able to record a 22% increase in EBTIDA to 8.8m after reducing other operating expenses.
“The different advertising campaigns had a multiplying effect on the whole worldwide football-enthusiasm and was one of the most important drivers of the GGR growth in June 2014,” Klaus Fahrnberger, investor relations manager at bet-at-home, told eGaming Review this morning.
“[The Word Cup was] a major event for bet-at-home.com since [it was] the ideal time to sustainably increase the awareness of the brand and thus the number of registered customers.”
“Due to the internationally scaled advertising campaigns, bet-at-home.com was present via TV ads, billboards and online media throughout Europe, [while] the campaign was accompanied by an extensive bonus promotion, which was engaged a lot by our customers,” he added.
During the period the operator’s registered customer base increased 400,000 to 3.8 million.
Bet-at-home’s share price was up 3.95% to 41.53 on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse) at the time of writing.