888.com Q2 Results Remain Unchanged At $61m

British online gaming group 888 Holdings plc have just released their Q2 2010 financial results, which show total operating income unchanged from the same period a year earlier at $61m.
However, there was an increase of 10% in the company’s total operating income for the first half of the year to $130m.
888’s biggest success in Q2 seems to have been in their Bingo offering, which saw total operating income increase by an impressive 372% to $13 Million. This in turn helped to offset disappointing figures elsewhere, with Casino Operating Income down 9% to $27 million, and Poker down 36% to $8 million.
Gains were also made in 888 Holdings emerging market offering, which rose 11% to $4m and commenting on this area of the business, CEO Gigi Levy said:
“We made the strategic acquisition of Mytopia late in the quarter, which gives us an immediate footprint in the fast-growing social gaming arena, complementing our core offering and giving us access to millions of new customers.”
“Dragonfish has continued to win new contracts, such as the casino deal with Microgame in Italy and with MTV, as well as several contract extensions.”
After the results were released, shares in the company fell 1.5% to 49.25p and are currently way off their 52 week high price of 122.20p. The business is now valued at around £167 million.
Going forward, Gigi Levy expressed optimism for the company in the light of the recent merger between online gaming giants Bwin and PartyGaming and said the company had already been scouted out as a potential merger target.
Analyst Nick Bartram from KBC Peel Hunt, however, had a different slant on the matter and commented:
“The pressure is now on for others to pursue consolidation or risk being left further behind. For 888 consolidation looks imperative and, given the bottom line performance, the group could be pursuing this from a sole position of weakness.”