Australian gaming giant Aristocrat recently held its AGM at which significant gains and growth were both highlights
CEO Trevor Croker spoke of the expansion opportunities for the group and the subsequent driving of recurring revenues.
“Aristocrat has adapted and evolved our business in order to drive growth, profitability and shareholder returns over the past several years. As shareholders are aware, we have made several important acquisitions in executing this strategy, including Product Madness, VGT, Plarium and Big Fish.”
The acquisition of these companies gave Aristocrat an increased presence in the social games market and “brings additional scale, capability and diversification to our digital business,“ said Croker.
Similarly, the purchase of Big Fish Games, one of the top six digital social casino game publishers globally, increased the company’s stake in the casual free to play segments.
“The revenues of Product Madness and Big Fish positions Aristocrat as the clear number two social digital casino publisher in the world and further cements our status as a leading digital game content business.”
Focusing on financial performance in the 2017 fiscal year, it was revealed that Aristocrat delivered a very strong result for the period “against a backdrop of broadly flat markets and increasing pressure from existing and new competitors. Industry leading talent, game content, hardware and technology, coupled with effective in-market execution focused on our highest value, strategic opportunities were the key contributors to our performance.”
Group revenue improved over 15 per cent in reported terms to a record result of more than AU$2.45bn. EBITDA increased over 24 per cent, compared to the prior corresponding period. Operating cash flow of over AU$799m was more than 17 per cent higher than the previous year.
Aristocrat achieved 18 per cent growth in our class three premium gaming operations footprint, to over 16,000 units, while also growing its class two footprint and realising a five per cent improvement in overall average fees per day.
The positivity continued from US customers too, with the company being voted supplier of the year at the G2E trade show for the fourth consecutive year.
