Industry News
Led By Foreign Accounts
The introduction of an online casino, and the relaunch of Betfair Poker, also contributed to the massive sales growth.
Accounting for one-off investments of 12 million pounds sterling, the company reported earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization of 48 million pounds sterling, up from 40 million pounds sterling the previous year. That included a margin of 26 percent, contrasted with 28 percent the year earlier.
The company said it is quite "confident" of reaching its boal of lifting margins above 30 percent in 2009.
Betfair, moreover, increased its number of active users by 57 percent during the year to 433,000 boosted by improved marketing. Its total number of registered customers is now over of 1 million.
The company's technology platform now handles up to 5 million transactions every day - more than all of Europe's stock markets combined, experts said.
Outside the U.K.
Most of the growth is coming from "customers outside the U.K.," who contributed 38 percent of overall revenues last year, up from 32 percent last year.Betfair will soon begin trading in Italy, following its successful application for a Sportsbook licence, and now holds licenses in the U.K., Italy, Malta, Germany, Austria, and Australia. The company continues to work with governments worldwide to push for a regulated approach to the further liberalization of gambling markets.
Betfair's policy of refusing bets from the U.S. means that revenues were unaffected by the passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act a year ago, which caused "significant turbulence" in the online gaming market.
The company invested 22 million pounds sterling in research and development during the year, up from 12 million sterling the year before.
The investment included the cost of creating the casino operation, the migration of the poker platform following the acquisition of Pokerchamps in Oct 2005, and the integration of Timeform, the horse-racing form guide business bought last fall.
Betfair also said its strong profit and "cash generation" has left it with 180 million pounds sterling in corporate funds and absolutely no debt.
© Copyright 2007 Online Casino Crawler This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
