PartyGaming comfortable with market expectations for 2005 UPDATE
PartyGaming PLC, owner of PartyPoker.com, the worlds most popular poker website, reported in-line third quarter to end-September trading, an encouraging start to its fourth quarter and reassured on the outlook, helping to restore confidence in the internet gaming sector and sending its own shares nearly 10 pct higher.
The group, which floated in June, said it remains comfortable with analysts consensus forecasts for revenue and EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation) before share option and IPO costs for the year to end-December 2005.
Going into today analysts were forecasting revenue of 917 mln usd and clean EBITDA of 528 mln usd.
On Sept 6 PartyGamings shares lost a third of their value after the company admitted to revenue growth in July and August below internal hopes.
Today chief executive Richard Segal said although this trend continued in September trading in October had seen a marked improvement.
Third quarter group revenue increased 32 pct to 220.0 mln usd. New poker player sign-ups totaled 209,372, while active poker player days were 12.0 mln -- an increase of 5 pct on the second quarter and a 53 pct increase over the same period last year.
Yield per active player day in poker fell to 16.6 usd from 18.9 usd in the third quarter last year, and in casino fell to 59.2 usd from 82.1 usd.
All of those key metrics were within the range of expectations with active player days towards the top of the range and yields towards the bottom, Segal told reporters.
He pointed to a material uplift in performance in both poker and casino since the end of the third quarter.
This months move to shift PartyPoker.com to a stand-alone platform, with increased customer functionality, had contributed to a 10 pct increase in daily gross poker revenue (excluding skins) versus the average for the third quarter.
The initial response to cross-selling casino games, such as Black Jack, to PartyPoker.com customers had been much stronger than anticipated, said the CEO.
The company stressed it is on target to launch a fully integrated, Party-branded platform featuring a shared purse and the first of two new games in the first half of 2006.
Between now and the end of the year we fully expect that the 3 billionth hand of poker will be played on our PartyPoker.com tables, said Segal, adding: We remain confident about the groups prospects.
At 9.21 am shares in PartyGaming were up 7-1/2 pence at 85-1/2, valuing the business at 3.42 bln stg. The stock floated at 116 pence in June.
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2005-10-22
