Hong Kong-listed Asia Pioneer Entertainment Holdings Ltd (APE), a casino gaming equipment distributor and technical support specialist, says it plans to expand its vending machine business to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area. That is in order to diversify the group’s business amid a decline in revenue because of the Covid-19 pandemic, said the firm in a Friday filing.
The Greater Bay Area initiative is a national government move to integrate further the economies and peoples of the three major population centres within it.
APE’s interests include Asia Pioneer Entertainment Ltd, a Macau-based distribution, sales and servicing business for casino slot machines and electronic table games.
In Friday’s filing, the parent company reported revenue of just above HKD3.0 million (US$385,452) for the first half of 2021, down by 74.6 percent from the prior-year period.
The group’s main business units – technical sales and distribution of electronic gaming equipment products, consulting and technical services, and repair services – recorded a revenue decline in year-on-year terms of 79.6 percent, 40.7 percent and 79.9 percent, respectively.
In the first half of 2021, revenue in the technical sales and distribution of electronic gaming equipment was HKD1.92 million, compared with HKD9.37 million a year earlier. The group said the decrease was “mainly due to the impact of Covid-19 on our major customers resulting in delayed or cancelled orders.”
Despite the fall in revenue, the group saw its net loss narrow to HKD9.40 million, compared with HKD28.95 million in the first half of 2020. The company said the decrease in revenue was “offset by the effect of a one-time impairment loss of finance lease receivables of approximately HKD22.9 million” in the prior-year period.
APE said in Friday’s filing that it would continue to seek “new business opportunities” as part of its diversification strategy. The group had installed three vending machines in the first six months of 2021, and planned to deploy a further 40 units “before the end of 2021.”
The company is also “seeking to enter the Greater Bay Area consumer retail sector” with its vending machine business, and is currently setting up a unit in mainland China and registering trademarks in order to start operations there.
