QUOTE FROM OSKAR MÜHLBACH, CEO
”The first quarter of 2021 was a solid quarter for Raketech. Despite Q1 traditionally being a slower quarter, revenues came in in line with Q4, totaling EUR 8.3m. This equals an annual growth rate of 27% whereof 5% was organic. EBITDA margin reached 39% which, considering continuously significant investments into R&D and geographical expansion, is comforting.
FIRST QUARTER 2021
- Revenues totalled EUR 8.3 million (EUR 6.5 million) representing an increase of 26.6%
- Organic growth amounted to 5.4% (-10.7%)
- NDCs (New Depositing Customers) amounted to 39,874 (32,278), representing an increase of 23.5%
- EBITDA amounted to EUR 3.2 million (EUR 2.6 million), corresponding to a margin of 38.7% (40.2%)
- Operating profit amounted to EUR 1.6 million (EUR 1.4 million), corresponding to a margin of 18.9% (20.9%)
- Profit for the period amounted to EUR 1.1 million (EUR 1.1 million)
- Earnings per share amounted to EUR 0.03 (EUR 0.03)
EVENTS DURING FIRST QUARTER 2021
- There were no significant events during the quarter
SUBSEQUENT EVENTS AFTER THE END OF THE PERIOD
- Revenues in April, 2021 of EUR 2.8 million (EUR 2.4 million).
CEO OSKAR MÜHLBACH COMMENTS ON THE QUARTER
“With regards to margin it is worth noticing that our lower margin network revenues now represent a fair share of our total revenues and that our Finance vertical, which was on the contrary very strong with regards to margin, no longer are in the numbers. In practice this means that our operational efficiency continues to be high, and that growth from our core operations can be expected to have positive impact on margin over time, alternatively to be used to further accelerate growth by developing new products, offerings, enter into new geographies and more.
Primary growth drivers in the quarter were our Japanese and US efforts, as well as continuously solid performance from our Network sales. Once again Japan stands out positively, delivering record numbers on all KPIs, spanning from traffic/sessions to monetization. And in the US, the Superbowl in combination with our newest licenses in the states of Virginia and Michigan, significantly pushed the needle, mid quarter. However, this needle was to some extent, but as expected, slightly pushed back by low seasonality on other markets, increased gambling tax in Denmark, Casinofeber still being lower than previously and payment blocks in Norway.
Our sports share of total revenues increased to 17%, representing an annual growth of 27%, much thanks to our US assets. And our non-Nordic revenues furthermore increased to 35%, which not only is all time high, but also a major strategic milestone in our quest to lower our dependency on the Nordics by expanding geographically. Sweden, which currently represents 38% of the group’s total revenues, compared to 55% last year same period is however still by far our largest market, even though the dependency has decreased significantly. Primarily, the development is supported by acquired additional revenues on new markets as well as strong performance on other markets – with Japan leading the way. After experiencing an extraordinary growth during 2020, which continued the first quarter 2021, it is satisfying to conclude that Japan now is representing 11% of the group’s total. Additionally, the US is representing 6% of total, which considering the short time frame should be interpreted as a sign of Raketech having high ambitions on the American market.
Outlook
I am pleased to be able to conclude that the positive momentum we showed in Q4 continued into Q1 and resulted in yet another stable quarter. Furthermore, April revenues amounted to EUR 2.8m, despite the US slowing down slightly after the Superbowl peak.
The Raketech team is currently focusing on ensuring we maximize the potential from the European Championships in Football coming up in June in addition to our continuous efforts to ensure we deliver on strategic goals with regards to geographical expansion and commercial diversification, through R&D as well as M&A.
Finally, I want to take the opportunity to thank the Chairman of the Board; Christian Lundberg, who has declined re-election as of this year’s AGM in May. Thank you Christian, for sharing your wisdom and for being such a great support, to me personally and to the whole team at Raketech. And also, a warm welcome to industry veteran Ulrik Bengtsson who is nominated to take on the role after Mr Lundberg. I am very much looking forward to taking Raketech to new levels together!
Link to report
The full Interim Report is available on https://raketech.com/investors/
