Paddy Power has today announced their interim results for the 6 months ending on the 30th of June 2011 – the results were strong with growth in online and mobile.
According to PaddyPowerPLC.com, the key performance highlights include:
- Underlying profit before tax up 15% to €56.8m and diluted EPS up 18% to 97.1 cent, notwithstanding the 2010 World Cup comparative and adverse sporting results during the period.
- A 20% increase in the interim dividend to 30% per share – this is supported by a healthy balance sheet with net cash of €91 million at the end of the period.
- 81% of the Group’s operating profit came from online activities – 73% came from international activities.
Looking more closely at the online highlights:
- Gross win is up 28% to €143 million whilst operating profit is up 25% to €45.3 million – this shows how much the online division is growing.
- Active customers are up 48% whilst gross win is up 35% to €101.1 million. Operating profit is also up 26% to €36.5 million – this shows how much PaddyPower.com is growing.
- Operating profit is up 25% (15% in constant currency) to €9.8 million in the Australian market.
- Turnover from the PaddyPower.com Mobile Sportsbook is up a whopping 279% with 35% of active customers now playing via the mobile – this is 22% of all stakes which is huge.
In terms of retail, here are the highlights:
- UK Retail operating profit was up 59% to €4.7 million – Sportsbook stakes were up 6% whilst machine gaming revenues were also up – 16%.
- UK Retail estate now an impressive 151 shops – 27 new shops opened in 2011 to date with 35 to 40 new shops to open annually.
- Irish Retail operating profit though was down 44% to €5.1 million – this was as a result of “adverse sports results”. Stakes were down overall just 1% and direct operating costs per shop were down 4%.
Patrick Kennedy, Chief Executive for Paddy Power PLC, said that this has been “a great first half for Paddy Power”. He said that the strong results were due to the “excellent performance of the online division and the success of our mobile offering”.
He went to say that the company were growing in the UK retail market as well as in Australia and that they were satisfied about their core market (Ireland) despite the touch conditions.