Inspired reports 166% revenue rise in Q2, retail reopenings and interactive growth

Inspired Entertainment, Inc reported Thursday the financial results for the three-month period ended June 30, 2021. 

According to the report published by the company, the highlights of the quarters are: 

• Q2 Revenue Rose 166.4 % to $41.5 Million
• Net loss of $43.8 million
• Adjusted EBITDA of $8 million 

The company generated total revenue of $41.5 million, a net loss of $43.8 million and Adjusted EBITDA of $8.0 million in the three months ended June 30, 2021. 

During the quarter, Inspired's key retail gaming territories, UK, Italy and Greece, reopened at different stages following COVID-19-related restrictions. 

The company exhibited year-over-year growth on a reported basis across all segments in the second quarter 2021. The Interactive business continued to display strong performance, and sequential growth, in all major markets, with revenue of $5.8 million, an increase of 69.0% year-over-year, due to the addition of new customers and territories and the consistent launch of new content.

This expansion, as well as the associated costs to establish new geographies and licensed content, led to Interactive segment operating income increasing 46.8% year-over-year to $2.6 million, and Adjusted EBITDA increasing 45.7% to $3.6 million from $2.4 million in the prior-year period.  The Interactive business generated record revenues for the company in July.

In a press release published by the company, Executive Chairman of Inspired, Lorne Weil spoke about the past quarter’s financial results and said: "We are pleased with our second quarter results as the majority of our retail businesses steadily reopened throughout the quarter and our Interactive business built upon its momentum coming into the quarter to continue its rapid growth trajectory”, he pointed out.

"From what we have seen in July and so far in August, this momentum in the Interactive business has continued—leading to record-level revenues in July, notwithstanding the reopening of retail customers during the quarter—while our retail businesses appear to have rebounded quickly to roughly pre-COVID levels, as we had forecasted. Gross gaming revenue per operational machine in betting shops is approximately back to pre-COVID levels, the pubs have been improving steadily week-to-week since constraints were completely lifted in July 2021 and revenue from the holiday parks has outperformed our initial expectations", he noted.  

"Our North American business remains a key driver of growth opportunities as we continue to build momentum and expand our footprint. Early results from our installed base of Valor terminals with Western Canada Lottery Corporation (WCLC) have been very encouraging. We believe this bodes well not only for future placements with WCLC, but also for our video lottery terminal business in the Canadian lottery market, which has approximately 33,000 machines in total”, he underscored.

“We see the North American online gaming and betting markets as significant opportunities, and we believe we are well positioned in these markets. We launched our first games into Michigan in the second quarter and North America has now become our second largest Interactive market, with further opportunities as we continue to reach full deployment across Michigan and New Jersey and seek to benefit from opportunities with several additional states. We have also started to work with BetMGM in New Jersey on promoting our Virtual Plug & Play, which allows their online players to access multiple virtual sports via an intuitive player interface, and we are very excited about the prospects for this product", Weil said.

"During the second quarter, we refinanced all of our borrowings, which extended our maturity profile and provided us increased operating flexibility, while lowering our expected interest expense (excluding the amortization of debt fees) for 2022 by approximately $3.6 million," said Stewart Baker, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Inspired

"Between the strong retail gaming recovery outlook, robust iGaming trends, refinancing and the overall improvement in our cost structure coming out of COVID-19, we believe we are in a better position than ever to deliver on our strategic plan and maximize shareholder value."

"With the third quarter ramping up as we had expected, we are maintaining our third quarter guidance.  We are looking forward to demonstrating that we are emerging from COVID-19 as a stronger and leaner company with a higher revenue base, more efficient cost structure and increased growth opportunities," concluded Weil.