William Hill boss Ralph Topping dismissed talk of a “tough quarter” this morning as his company’s booming online and mobile business helped it deliver an 8% rise in group operating profit in Q1.
Speaking to analysts in the wake of rival Ladbrokes blaming a poor Cheltenham and other one-off trading events for being forced to issue a profit warning earlier this week, Topping (pictured) said:
“You’ve heard a wee bit of talk about it being a tough quarter. My response, I don’t think so. What we’re seeing in our business is the benefit of having two strong channels. That’s a massive plus in the digital age, and it helps growth. You really can’t be a retail business these days without having a strong digital business, and your digital business will benefit much more from a strong retail presence.”
Topping revealed that William Hill had managed to make £9m profit in Cheltenham week, well ahead of its weekly average. “So, was Cheltenham bad? No. Was it spectacular? No. But we made £9m profit.”
The boss of the UK’s largest bookie said this was down to the business being increasingly diversified around gaming and across its digital platform, meaning the big race meetings such as the Grand National and Cheltenham “are not as fundamentally important to our overall performance as they used to be.”
In an obvious dig at rival Ladbrokes, Topping added: “Making a loss in Cheltenham week, question mark…it really shouldn’t happen. “
William Hill increasingly saw these big race meetings as “important customer recruitment opportunities, particularly for new businesses, new platforms like mobile”, said Topping. The company’s sportsbook app was downloaded 45,000 times on Grand National day and 51,000 times during the Cheltenham Festival, beating the competition “hands down on downloads”, said Topping.
Operating profit from its flagship online division during the first 13 weeks of the year was up 13%, with online net revenue up an impressive 21%.
Online sportsbook stakes for the first time exceeded those taken over the counter in the retail estate, the bookmaker revealed. Mobile sportsbook also consistently exceeded Topping’s previously stated target of £15m a week, putting it on track to account for 40% of sportsbook revenues by the end of the year.
“The underlying principle here is, when we give you targets, we hit them, and we are getting to these levels 12-18 months ahead of when we thought we would”, said Topping.
He also reiterated his expectation that William Hill would be a £5bn business in three to five years. “I never say those kinds of things lightly. Right now we are around £3.4bn, some of you might have noticed we are second reserve for the FTSE 100. But I don’t spend all day in my office in lovely Wood Green worrying about that.”
Article written by Katy Stirland
