China LotSynergy phone sales deal for Henan sports lottery

Apr 08, 2015 Newsdesk Industry Talk, Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck  

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Hong Kong-listed China LotSynergy Holdings Ltd says one of its units has won a bid to supply software to Henan Sports Lottery Administration Centre in mainland China for use in the sale by telephone of lottery tickets.

The subsidiary, Beijing Huacai Yingtong Technology Co Ltd, is involved in the research and development of lottery systems and equipment.

According to a filing on Wednesday, the unit will provide “system project planning, software design and development and system testing services” to Henan Sports Lottery. It will also connect the system to the National Sports Lottery Administration Centre.

China LotSynergy said in its filing that in 2014 sports lottery sales in Henan province, in the southwest of the country, grew by 34 percent year-on-year. The company said that province-wide, sports lottery sales exceeded RMB8 billion (US$1.29 billion) annually for the first time, to a final tally of RMB8.26 billion. That maintained the province in the top eight national rankings for sales, added the firm.

Henan is said to be China’s most populous province with 100 million people and 80 million mobile phone users.

“Given the large lottery market size and mobile phone user base, the development of new media lottery in Henan province faces excellent growth prospects,” said China LotSynergy in Wednesday’s announcement.

“This project is one of the important lottery system development projects since the announcement of new industry regulations, and will drive the rapid growth of the company in the new media lottery area,” it added.

The company reported a profit of HKD100 million (US$12.9 million) for full-year 2014, up 12.9 percent over the previous year.

In October 2010,China’s Ministry of Finance issued two provisional regulations regarding paperless distribution of lotteries: for online sales and for telephone sales.

But the administration of online sales has recently run into trouble. On April 3, eight central government agencies sent out a joint memo ordering the immediate cessation of what the document called “unauthorised” online lottery sales services.

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