Heart of Vegas Gambling App Helped Boost Aristocrat’s 2015 Profits

Top of the line Australian pokies gaming solutions supplier Aristocrat Leisure, is quite happy with the results of its overall 12-month operations ending September 30, 2015. The company’s profits have soared by as much as 88.6 per cent reflecting increased gross revenue of AU$1,582.4 million as of statement date.

The amount has brought the pokies firm back on the road to financial profits as it resulted to net profits of AU$186.43 million, in contrast to the AU$16.4 million losses posted in the previous year. The company further reports that normalised profits is much greater at AU$236.1 million, representing net profit growth of 78.9 percent.

Reference to normalised profit denotes income derived from the ordinary course of business, without taking into consideration one-time extraordinary transactions during the year. In Aristocrat’s case, the company’s net profits for the 12-month period ending September 30, 2015 is significantly influenced by the strategic acquisition in 2014, of US-based gaming business Video Gaming Technologies (VGT).

According to the pioneer Australian pokies machine manufacturer, the turnaround happened after the company launched the Heart of Vegas apps for iOS and Android smartphones last April 2015. The results are compelling as digital revenue soared by 145.3 percent, contributing AU$123.4 million in revenue to Aristocrat’s overall financial achievements for 2015.

Aristocrat explained further that the positive performance of the Heart of Vegas apps is a result of the successful strategic acquisition of VGT, which delivered both revenue and profit growth.

As a backgrounder, Aristocrat had acquired San Francisco-based social casino games developer Product Madness in 2012. Being the publisher of several widely played Facebook-based social casino games, the Product Madness acquisition enabled Aristocrat to reinforce its online gaming foothold by entering the social casino market.

At the time of the acquisition, Product Madness already ranked as one of the top five social casino slot operators at Facebook, having more than 500,000 active users daily, and about 3.5 million active users on a monthly basis. Aristocrat reports that today, the average number of active daily users has grown to 799,840, while actual users at year-end has reached 1.089 million. Daily revenue generated average at 38 U.S. cents or 0.53 AU cents per user.

Product Madness proclaims in its website that the Heart of Vegas social casino app remains the Number 1, top grossing iOS social casino app in Australia and among the top five highest grossing social casino apps in the U.S. market. Aristocrat’s Chief Digital Officer Craig Billings had previously commented during the launch of the Heart of Vegas iOS app that it is a huge success at Facebook. Mainly because app users are given access to a number of free-to-play versions of Aristocrat’s most popular land-based slot machine games, via the FB and mobile gaming platforms.

The Chief Executive Officer of Aristocrat, Mr. Jamie Odell said he foresees further growth in overall digital revenue, as he anticipates further increase in the Heart of Vegas app’s number of active daily users. Still, the Aristocrat CEO maintains a conservative view by saying that the average revenue realised from active daily users and the related margins will temper throughout 2016, as Aristocrat matures into new channels and hits scale.