32Red reported strong performance for the year’s first two quarters, despite taking a profit hit for the UK’s new Point of Consumption tax.
The company pointed to a £2m payment for the UK tax and an increase in marketing in Italy as lowering profit. The company reported EBITDA of £1.2m for the first half of the year, compared to £2.3m in H1 2014, with profit before taxation plummeting to £100,000 from £1.2m for the comparative period in 2014. In comparison Total Net Gaming Revenue jumped to £18.6m from £15.2m, reported SBCNews.
“We are delighted to report a record revenue performance for 32Red in the first half of 2015 with NGR from the business up by 22 percent,” said CEO Ed Ware. “This performance was underpinned by our strong brand, leading customer offer and return on investment-driven marketing expertise. Excluding the impact of the newly introduced point of consumption tax in the UK, underlying EBITDA was up 57% reflecting the strong operational momentum in the business.”
32Red increased investment in marketing in Italy during the first half of the year and NGR increased by 67 percent to £0.9m. A total of 4,285 new players were recruited in the first half (H1 2014: 3,084) bringing the total number of active players to 8,443 (H1 2014: 5,793), according to SBCNews.
