GGRAsia – Loss-making lottery supplier AGTech preps turnaround

Loss-making lottery supplier AGTech preps turnaround

Sep 05, 2014 Newsdesk Industry Talk, Latest News, Top of the deck

AGTech Holdings Ltd, a supplier to mainland China’s regulated lottery market, says it is “on track” to realise a number of strategic deals that will help the company’s business grow and strengthen.

In August, the firm reported that its first half losses had widened year-on-year by nearly 70 percent to HKD88.9 million (US$11.5 million) from HKD52.7 million in the year prior period, on declining revenue.

The firm provides equipment including lottery terminals to China’s Sports Lottery Administration Centre.

In a filing on Thursday to the Growth Enterprise Market of the Hong Kong stock exchange, AGTEch’s board said its unit Beijing AGTech GOT Technology Co Ltd – known simply as GOT – has had multiple successes in selling sports lottery terminals inside and outside China.

“Since the commencement of the replacement cycle for sports lottery terminals in 2013, our lottery terminal supply division (GOT), with its excellent product capability and professional services, has succeeded in winning multiple sports lottery terminal tenders for various provinces and municipalities in China (including Jilin, Hebei, Tianjin, Zhejiang, Shaanxi, Inner Mongolia, Guangdong, Guizhou, Anhui, Heilongjiang, Fujian, Beijing and Shanxi), further reinforcing its leading position in the Chinese sports lottery terminal market,” AGTech’s board stated.

It added: “We are already supplying GOT terminals outside of China (e.g. South Africa) and continue to explore growing this international business in future via a network of recently established international distributors following technical trials in over 10 countries to date”.

The board further stated: “In light of the very high levels of Internet and smartphone penetration in China, we intend to participate in these exciting arenas via the provision of Internet/mobile systems and games”.

The company said that sales of its virtual sports game products in the mainland had “experienced meaningful improvement” since the second quarter this year, and stated its ‘Lucky Racing’ game – which has been successful in Hunan – is likely to be introduced to other markets this year.

The board statement added that AGTech is also in “final assessment of a potentially exciting acquisition opportunity in China,” but didn’t give details.

Sports lottery sales in mainland China rose by 24.1 percent in the first half of 2014 in comparison with a year before, reaching RMB79.91 billion (US$12.9 billion), show data released in July by the Ministry of Finance.