The electronic wallet provider doubled profits for the third half-year in a row.
The company reported a 126 per cent rise to $40.6m in profit before tax, from revenues of $73.5m, up 122 per cent from the same period last year.
NETeller surpassed 1.7 million members in June 2005, adding an average of 2,732 members per day for the half year, up 82 per cent from the year before.
“We are pleased with the strong performance that NETELLER continues to demonstrate, with significant growth in customers, merchants, revenue and profitability. The next six months will be key to our expansion in Europe, strengthening our foothold in Asia, and the implementation of the next generation web-based platform,” said the company\’s CEO, Gord Herman.
“The craze for online gambling, which made up 80 per cent of the company\’s transfers in the first half, was still going strong in Western markets, and Asia had huge potential to continue that growth” he told Reuters.
“Asia hasn\’t even started in this industry yet. It\’s potentially a massive industry that right now probably has, at least, a 2 to 3 year growth cycle,” he added.
Some analysts suggested NETeller is under threat from US courts, which could enforce restrictions on online gambling, and from lawmakers, who could regulate online gambling, bringing in the big banks.
“Everyone asks what happens if they completely come down with this law, but it\’s almost impossible for that happen. What\’s more scary to us is if they completely legalise it because then we are competing against Citibank,” said Herman.
“We think we\’ve got at least 2 to 3 years before any major changes happen there.”
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