The online poker and casino operator announced its second quarter Key Performance Indicators and trading update, which show a 49% rise up to $319.3 million in group revenues, boosted by record player numbers.
In the quarter ended 30 June 2006, net poker revenue increased by 21% compared with the previous year to $243.2 million, but was down 6% versus the first quarter, reflecting the seasonal pattern seen in previous years.
The group’s marketing effort, across a number of different channels, has continued to drive new real money sign-ups for poker which totalled 232,446 in the period (2005: 186,560), equivalent to 2,554 per day, versus 2,925 per day in the previous quarter. Unique active players also increased strongly, benefiting from the successful reactivation of a number of inactive players during the quarter as well as the addition of players from EmpirePoker.com. Active player days were 23% ahead of the previous year to 14.0 million and slightly ahead of the previous quarter, despite the lower frequency of play during the seasonally weaker second quarter.
The company\’s concerted drive into territories outside the US has continued in the second quarter with over 46% of the new real money sign-ups coming from outside the US following a particularly strong take-up in Europe. Over 27% of PartyGaming\’s poker revenue in the quarter came from outside the US compared with just 15% in the second quarter of 2005 and 24% in the first quarter of the current year.
Yield per active player day was $17.4 compared with $18.5 in the previous quarter, but was 2% ahead of the same period in 2005, reflecting a reduced amount of time spent playing online during the second quarter. While higher player numbers were unable to offset the impact of the lower yield, resulting in a reduction in average daily revenue (excluding skins) in the quarter to $2.7 million, this was over 25% ahead of that achieved in the second quarter of 2005.
Compared with the previous year, casino revenue in aggregate was up by 481% to $76.1 million reflecting the introduction of blackjack on to PartyPoker.com in October 2005 and the addition of PartyCasino.com to the integrated platform in February 2006. The amount gambled in the casino business increased substantially to $4.13 billion, up from $460 million the previous year. Compared to the previous quarter, the amount gambled declined from $4.47 billion to $4.13 billion reflecting a seasonally quieter second quarter and a reduction in the amount gambled on blackjack.
The yield per active player day fell by 4% to $36.1 in the first quarter due to seasonality and an increase in bonus rates which averaged 11.9% of gross casino revenue during the second quarter, versus 9.3% in the first quarter. The fall in the yield year on year was attributable to the introduction of blackjack on to PartyPoker.com. PartyCasino.com now has 39 individual games that are live and, despite having had limited marketing support so far, it is already attracting an average of over 23,000 real money players per day.
The consolidated KPIs for the second quarter 2006 include a 53% increase in unique active players increased up to over 1 million players, with substantial increases experienced in all geographic segments. Europe performed particularly strongly with a 237% increase in unique active players to 171,531.
Active player days in the second quarter increased by 25% versus the same quarter in 2005 driven by continued growth in the size of the active player base, partially offset by a small reduction in the average frequency of play.
Yield per active player day in the quarter increased by 23% to $22.1 reflecting the positive impact from cross-selling higher yielding casino games such as blackjack to PartyPoker players. As a result, average daily revenue increased sharply to $3.5m per day, up from $2.3m in 2005.
“I am delighted to announce that PartyGaming’s performance in the three months to 30 June 2006 exceeded expectations with both poker and casino delivering strong performances in the seasonally quieter second quarter. I am particularly pleased by our continued international expansion with 46% of our new real money poker sign-ups and 24% of our overall revenue in the quarter coming from outside the US,” commented Mitch Garber, CEO of PartyGaming.
“The development of our fully integrated platform, enabling customers to play a broad variety of games using a single player account and shared purse, has continued apace. PartyGammon, our online backgammon game, was launched on schedule last month, PartyBingo was added this month and other new games will be added to the platform during the fourth quarter.”
“Continuing to drive international expansion remains a clear objective and over the coming months we aim to pursue the growth of our non-US business aggressively, particularly in Europe and South America, where we continue to see a number of attractive opportunities.”
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