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Affiliate Monitor Company-by-company review : Gaming Innovation Group
GAMING INNOVATION GROUP SECOND QUARTER REVIEW
AFTERTHOUGHT
The extent to which Gaming Innovation Group ( GiG ) treats the media side of the business as a cash cow that can help fund its efforts in other areas of supply , notably in sports betting , appears to become more obvious at the time of its results .
This may be because there is more to speak about in the sports betting supply space , including news deals and partnerships , and certainly ever since the sale of the B2C operations to Betsson , this sense of the media arm ’ s utility seems all the more evident .
So , while the company spoke in the results about the media services unit having delivered “ superbly ” in the quarter , one of the questions asked in the Q & A segment of the earnings call was about whether the company would look at divesting itself of this asset . Indeed , chief executive
Richard Brown suggested there was a “ connection ” between the media services and the platform business that provided a “ strong strategic rationale ”.
But the question is likely to be asked again considering the discrepancy in revenue contribution . In the second quarter , platform services contributed € 5.1m of revenue while the media services brought in more than double that at € 11m . In EBITDA terms , meanwhile , platform services at least managed to maintain its operating profitability at € 0.2m while media services , as befits the margin-rich affiliate sector , was worth € 5.3m in EBITDA .
BITS AND PIECES
On the call , the commentary around the media services business was similarly subdued . Asked about the strategy going
forward for new markets , what sites would be utilised and how growth was being pursued , Brown said GiG ’ s approach was “ very specific ”.
“ PPC is an easy win in some new markets ,” he added . “ We will continue with that focus . That all depends on the market we are looking at – some we launch with new sites and others we focus our global brands [ on ].”
The information conveyed in the results was slightly more illuminating about how the division had performed . FTDs hit an alltime high for the second quarter in a row at 46,800 , a 37 % year-onyear increase and 7 % up on the prior quarter .
The growth in FTDs came from paid media , which saw an increase ( up from 16,100 to 22,600 ), as opposed to publishing , which saw a reverse ( down from 27,700 to 24,200 ). However , the iGB Market Monitor