Casino slot machine supplier Aristocrat Gaming has seen its Asian business jump in the past year, coinciding with post-pandemic recovery in key markets. “We really see this as a growth region. Our business has doubled in revenue in the last 12 months,” said Lloyd Robson (pictured), Aristocrat Gaming’s general manager for Asia, in comments to GGRAsia.
In May, Aristocrat Gaming’s parent, Australia-listed Aristocrat Leisure Ltd, reported revenue of just under AUD3.27 billion (US$2.19 billion) for its financial first half, up 6.1 percent from the prior-year period, with Asia sales a factor.
Singapore “is the market that really led Asia in the rebound” post pandemic, noted Mr Robson. “It’s also a market that really put us back on the map with our better performing product.”
The city-state was one of the first places in the region to introduce a phased resumption of international tourism, opening its doors to fully-vaccinated travellers as early as April 2022.
As a duopoly setup, Singapore is “a smaller market compared to Macau and Philippines,” in terms of number of machines.
But Singapore is also “really interesting” with “two of the strongest IRs [integrated resorts] in the region,” added Mr Robson, referring to Resorts World Sentosa and Marina Bay Sands.
“We’re deploying a lot of units in both properties with a lot of different games and a lot of different theming that we’re working on at the moment,” he noted.
A particular Aristocrat product that Mr Robson says has flown high in Singapore and the Philippines, as well as in Macau – amid the lunar-calendar Year of the Dragon that started in February – was “Dragon Link”.
“The Dragon games that we talked about a year ago are live and running everywhere, particularly with Dragon Link and ‘Jin Cai Hao Yun’,” stated Mr Robson.
While he notes that “every casino in the region can theoretically buy the same game,” Aristocrat is focused on working with each operator – whether in Macau or elsewhere – “to create a differentiated experience” for them and their players.
Analytics, showroom intiatives
The manager observed that the investment was not only in product and marketing, but also analytics.
“The analytics is really helping us” when it comes to optimising location of products on the floor. “That helps operators drive their gross gaming revenue,” added Mr Robson.
“We really have made a big effort on building games and developing them for Macau and the rest of the region as opposed to us tweaking games from the global portfolio and dropping them into Macau,” or elsewhere in the region, “and hoping for the best,” observed the regional manager.
He stated: “Dragon Link is a great example. That took four years to make, but it was built bottom up with a lot of time spent in the market by our chief game designers to make sure it was fit for purpose and excitingly, we’re really seeing the fruits of that.”
Mr Robson said that Aristocrat Gaming’s senior management has been just as engaged on keeping up on the fast-paced Asian markets as the local team in the region.
“We’ve just spent a lot of time taking our CEO [Hector Fernandez] and management around the region to the Philippines, to Singapore, as well as to Macau,” he explained.
The Philippines has seen particular growth recently, and that market’s dynamism and appetite for new product can also lead in terms of regional trends.
“It’s pretty excited knowing what we’ve done and delivered to the market in the Philippines in the last 24 to 30 months,” stated Mr Robson. That market typically offers a “12 to 18 months” preview of what will happen in the Macau market, he added.
Aristocrat Gaming has been supporting its Asia-Pacific effort via its Manila showroom that opened in April 2023 and its refurbished Macau showroom that relaunched on the eve of the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) Asia in early June.
For the revamped Macau showroom on the city’s peninsula, the industry feedback is “really good,” noted Mr Robson.
According to the executive, Aristocrat Gaming is “the only one,” among the global equipment suppliers, “with an office and showroom” in Manila.
“It’s getting patronised by customers and the [local] regulator,” he stated. “We’ve done many product technical training” sessions there.
“The level of engagement that’s come,” as a result of the Manila showroom, “probably exceeded my expectations”.
In terms of the overall outlook for Aristocrat Gaming in Asia Pacific, Mr Robson said: “We really have something for everybody. There are new games; there’s a number of brand extensions; there’s link product, there’s also standalone products.
“Markets like Vietnam, Cambodia, are catered for, as is Malaysia. It’s not just the ‘big league markets’ like Singapore, the Philippines, Macau. There’s plenty [of product] to choose from all round.”
