NetEnt’s Interim Report For Q1 2020: Live Casino Boosted Gaming Revenues

Swedish gaming giant NetEnt has introduced its Interim Report for January-March 2020 that shows a 12% increase in revenues compared to the same period in 2019. According to the report, the rise of income amounted to SEK 518 million (CA$73M) was boosted by the expansion to new regulated markets, full integration with Red Tiger, and excellent performances of the company’s Live Casino.

Even though NetEnt entered the world of Live Dealer solutions only in 2013, the late start didn’t stop it from catching up with the strong competition. What’s more, since last December, the Swedish brand has seen all-time highs in player numbers for its live casino.

Endorsed by a robust finish in March against a somewhat weaker Swedish krona, great financial results for the first quarter of 2020 are mainly based on the growth brought by the US and the UK markets. When it comes to Sweden, developments in NetEnt’s home country continued to be negative, largely due to the recent re-regulation of this local market. The same trend was seen in Norway.

Integration with Red Tiger…

…helped further expansion across new regulated markets but on the other side, negatively affected earnings by SEK 26 million of restructuring costs. Still, NetEnt’s EBITDA for Q1 2020 has amounted to SEK 229 million with a margin of 44.2%.

Therese Hillman, Group CEO said:

“To further strengthen competitiveness and increase efficiency, we initiated a full integration with Red Tiger during the quarter. Red Tiger keeps performing above our expectations with its award-winning games and the expansion to new markets continues. Combined with a strong product pipeline, new regulated market entries and the Live Casino opportunity for NetEnt, this puts us in a good position to continue delivering profitable growth in 2020.”

Constantly broadening its presence in regulated markets, NetEnt currently holds licenses and product certifications in many parts of the world, from Spain to the USA (New Jersey and Pennsylvania), from Mexico to the UK, which remains the company’s largest domain. As for Canadian online casinos, at the moment punters from British Columbia can take advantage of the brand’s full suite of live dealer games streamed from the studio in Malta.

During 2019…

…a lot has been done to improve the Live Casino offering – besides the updating of UI with introducing new functions and designs, the developer rebranded and modernized one of its most popular games, traditional Blackjack Common Draw, which is now called Blitz Blackjack. The launch of a unique Auto-Roulette studio was another big event, inviting punters to try 3 different wheels in one place and choose between Classic Auto-Roulette, Rapid Auto-Roulette, and VIP Auto-Roulette.

Source: “Interim report January–March 2020“. NetEnt. April 22, 2020.