French horse racing tote and igaming operator PMU reported a 2.2% drop in gross profits to €2.48bn and 4.1% drop in turnover to €9.9bn for the 12-month period covering 2014.
The company’s core business of horse racing pari mtutel has been badly affected by the tough economic climate in France, with stakes down 5% to €9.1bn and gross profits down 2.6% to €2.4bn.
PMU’s retail sales were down 5.8% to €7.5bn in 2014 but international stakes on the French racing content it sells outside its home market were up 14% to €727.5m.
Online betting on football continued its strong performance and was helped by the Brazil World Cup, with stakes up 15% to €228.7m and gross profits up 21.9% to €47.1m, but stakes for the group’s overall online business were down 2.9% to €1.6bn last year.
Online poker turnover rose 3.8% to €591.6m but gross profits were down 1.4% to €21.3m. Horse racing stakes placed online mirrored the slowdown in the group’s land-based business, dropping 10.6% to €843m.
Mobile and tablet betting continued to rise, with 33% of stakes for horse racing placed via mobile platforms, 45% for fixed odds betting and a spectacular rise of 235% for poker stakes.
The group added that 2015 would see it continue to focus on upgrading its IT systems and its retail park to better respond to client expectations and improve the customer experience.
From September PMU will not be able to co-mingle its offline and online horse racing liquidities, a move its online competitors Betclic Turf and Zeturf will be hoping enables them to compete more meaningfully in that vertical.
Xavier Hurstel, newly-appointed chief executive of PMU, said PMU was a “solid business and it is this solidity that allows it to withstand (the tough economic climate of) today and maintain its performance level.”
He added: “PMU has contained the drop in gross profits while pursuing its development strategy in France and abroad combined with a cost reduction plan. This direction will enable us to generate a net result for the benefit of the horse racing sector as per our commitments of 2013.”
source : www.igamingbusiness.com
