The boss of William Hill has confirmed his preference to launch under its own brand in Australia, phasing out the Sportingbet and Centrebet brands under which it currently operates there.
“You’ve got confusion of brands and you have to look for a unifying brand,” he said, telling the Australian Financial Review (AFR) he saw Centrebet as a “secondary brand” and Sportingbet as too easily confused with Paddy Power-owned Sportsbet. “[T]he strongest brand of the lot is potentially William Hill,” he said.
Topping first confirmed the company’s intention to move to a unified brand in Australia at last month’s H1’s results presentation. The Tom Waterhouse brand Hill’s took over last month will however remain until its earn-out completes in December 2015. Brand awareness is however higher around the Tom Waterhouse brand (69%) in Australia than Centrebet (57%) and Sportingbet (52%).
The board will discuss the phasing out of the Sportingbet and Centrebet brands in favour of William Hiill at a meeting next week, with Topping saying he expects a final decision in the next four to six weeks.
The bookie also began phasing out the Miapuesta brand in Spain this week, after exercising its call option on the customer list and balances of Sportingbet’s Spanish-facing business, included in its £424m acquisition of Sportingbet Australia in March of this year. Sportingbet had previously acquired Centrebet for £130m in 2011.
GVC Holdings will however continue to operate under the Sportingbet and Centrebet brand in dot.com markets and Denmark, which acquired as part of the Hill’s transaction.
William Hill’s UK rival Ladbrokes followed its rival into the Australian market yesterday, acquiring the small Bookmaker.com.au business for AU$22.5m (£13m).
Topping however has his sights set down under on monopoly incumbents Tabcorp, which has the largest market share of 22% down under, and Tatts, which claims around 7%, according to Nomura Equity Research figures. He told the AFR he saw them as weak, and did not expect them to invest sufficiently in online to stay at the head of the market.
William Hill-owned Sportingbet (21%) is the second largest online sports betting operator in Australia, followed by Paddy Power’s Sportsbet and IASBet (20%) and Tasmania-licensed Betfair (14%), according to Nomura.
Topping also claimed that CPAs were “plummeting” as a result of the company rationalised marketing spend towards digital channels. The bookie revealed last month that Sportingbet Australia was paying an average of £724 to acquire just one customer – more than double the prior year and seven times the UK average – for a return of just £312 per active bettor, prompting a lukewarm response among analysts.
Article written by Stephen Carter
