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Earnings Call Transcript

Earnings Call Transcript
2021-Q2

from 0
U
Unknown Attendee

Good morning, and welcome to this presentation with Betsson. With us today, we have CEO, Pontus Lindwall; and CFO, Martin Ă–hman. My name is Christopher Bergen. I will handle the Q&A session after the presentation. [Operator Instructions] With that said, I hand over the word to Pontus. Please take us through your quarterly report.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Thank you, Christopher. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the presentation of 2021 second quarter by Betsson. What's happened to this one. Here we go. Here's an outline of the presentation today. We're going to start off with some highlights, then an operational update and strategic initiatives. Then Martin will take financials. I will do a trading update, and we'll talk about the regulatory update as well, and then there is a summary and Q&A. So start off with the highlights. It's been a very successful quarter, and we're really proud to announce revenues of SEK 1.8 billion, which is a 14% growth compared to the same quarter last year. We have all-time high in active customers with the first time passing 1 million active customers. We have the highest EBIT ever with the SEK 383 million and an EBIT margin of 22%. Casino revenue was down 5% compared to a very different second quarter of the last year, with a strong impact of corona at the time. Sportsbook turnover, up strong 73%, an all-time high Sportsbook revenues up 125%. So a set of really good figures, which we are proud about. So how has this been created? It's a result of the strategy that we have and our scalable and sustainable business model. This is our strategy house as we have named it. And I'm going to talk about -- a little about the initiatives forming part of this strategy. As you can see, we are growing through several initiatives. First of all, existing markets. These are the markets where we are strong today. And if these markets are really important for us in order to grow the business that we can keep on growing in the existing markets. On top of that, we try to grow in new markets, and we have many initiatives on new markets as well. LatAm, as an example, is comprising of both existing markets as Peru and new markets where we're entering now and about to enter. And we -- Betsson was the original official betting sponsor of Copa America, and we reached several good KPIs by doing that. As an example, we were viewed by more than 10 million viewers with the Betsson sign when Argentina won the Copa. And we could see a result of that really strong customer intake with NDCs increasing close to 400% compared to the same period of last year. So this is something that we really celebrate and we are proud of this achievement. More of new markets. During the quarter, we have launched our operations finally in Greece, which we have been longing for, for a long time. And there's a Sportsbook live today, and we're going to add casino and other products later on. We have also expanded by opening up in Eastern Europe through establishment in Republic of Belarus. On the B2B side and new markets, I'm going to talk a bit about what we do for the U.S. market. We have done some strategic investments. We acquired 35% in platform provider, Strive Gaming, which we believe will have a very strong offering in the U.S. market. We have also acquired 50% of the shares in a company called JDP Tech, which is a payment company for the Latin American market. We have done some strategic collaborations. The agreement with Strive to provide their PAM platform to Betsson for the establishment in Colorado in the U.S. market. And we have also offered our platform and Sportsbook to Masterpiece gaming for operations in the German sports betting market for the time being. So continuing talking about the U.S. This is a market we have been working on since 2019, and we have done a lot of initiatives, and we follow quite detailed road map, where we have reached all the way to looking forward to opening up in the first quarter of next year. So we have, during this quarter, kept on working on the Sportsbook with U.S. adaptations, and we're now up for testing and certification, and we look forward to open up in the first quarter next year. I'm going to explain a little bit more about the offering for the U.S. market and how that's split up between Betsson Group and Strive Gaming. Betsson Group, obviously, we are looking at the market for different prospects, and we support our -- or we supply our Sportsbook to potential clients. Then we have invested in Strive Gaming, but that's a separate company, and they prospect the market for platforms, for PAMs, and they look for their clients. But of course, there's a combination where we will be able to supply both the PAM and the Betsson Sportsbook together. So this is how we will enter the U.S. market. I'm going to talk a bit about innovation, which is an important part to support our growth and what we have done in the quarter. We have done a lot of development on the Sportsbook, which you can see from the figures, has been very successful, and we have increased the offering a lot for the tournaments. We have continued the cloud journey to make the product more accessible for the customers, more responsive and fast. We have integrated tournaments to a number of different brands. We have released a large number of new casino games. And we have, as I mentioned previously, opened Betsson in Greece, which is a totally new offering, and it was opened early June. We have also supplied our Sportsbook to our business-to-business partner, Realm, who opened up a new offering called Rexbet. I'm going to talk about sustainability and our sustainability framework, which is divided into 5 different parts: business compliance, responsible gaming, employee impact, social impact and climate impact. Within the responsible gaming area, we have done -- we measure a few KPIs. This is an area which we work on heavily all the time. And we have had 76,000 interactions with customers during the quarter. 1% of the customers that contacted the customer support was red flagged, which means that they will be deeper investigated. 11% of the customers use our non-mandatory responsible gaming tools. So it's quite an attractive or it's a well-used functionality that we have there. And 30% of our new customers has set a limit of [indiscernible] and deposit to the site. Other activities during the second quarter within employee impact, we have implemented a hybrid working from home model. We have had trainer -- leadership training for our managers and 98% of those managers found this very important and relevant. And we have had football related, of course, employee activities during the tournaments. On the climate impact side, we have got our targets approved by the third parties. So we are working towards becoming even better within climate impact. And that's where I'm supposed to hand over to Martin.

U
Unknown Attendee

Thank you, Pontus. And now it's time for Martin to present the financials in more details.

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

Thanks. As seen from historical figures, Betsson has been able to deliver growth over the years, displaying a CAGR of 12% in the last 5 years, which is more than the underlying market growth. Due to seasonality in our business, Q1 and Q2 are normally periods with somewhat lower customer activity and revenue generation than the third and the fourth quarters. Keeping this in mind, I'm extra happy to see all-time high in operating profit in the second quarter this year. Revenue for the second quarter was SEK 1.75 billion, an increase of 14% year-over-year, although impacted negatively by currency fluctuations of almost SEK 180 million, displaying an organic growth of 24%. Casino revenue was SEK 1.22 billion, a decrease of 5% year-over-year, impacted by loss of revenue from Germany and U.K., which are casino heavy markets. The decrease should also be seen in the light of casino revenue in Q2 last year being boosted by the lack of sporting events and temporarily transforming some Sportsbook players to casino. The gross turnover in Sportsbook was SEK 8.3 billion, which is an increase by 73% compared to the second quarter last year. Sportsbook margin was 8.5%, which is higher than the 6.9% last year and higher than the 8-quarter rolling average margin of 7.4%. The outcomes of the games in the initial part of U.S. and Copa America is making up for the lower Sportsbook margin in April and May. Sportsbook revenue increased by 125% and amounts to SEK 510 million, which is all-time high and represents 29% of the group's total revenue. License revenue from system delivery to B2B customer, grew from SEK 209 million in 2020 to SEK 273 million in 2021 and corresponds to 16% of the group's total revenue. The increase in revenue comes from Sportsbook in all regions and from casino in all regions, except Western Europe and the Nordics. When focusing on the Nordic region, we see an increase of almost 14% year-over-year, where Sportsbook is the main driver. Sweden continues to develop well. And despite the corona-related restrictions on online casino, Betsson has increased its market share and showed the highest revenue since the reregulation of the Swedish market in January 2019. The Danish operations is also developing well and shows growth year-over-year, impacted by Sportsbook in the year 2020. In Finland, the Ice Hockey World Cup and the Euro 2020 contributed to increased intake of new customers in the quarter. Betsson's commercial adaptation and its own technical solution has enabled the integration of new payment solutions, helping revenue in Norway to recover during the quarter. Revenue from Western Europe decreased by 27%, driven by decreased casino revenue and is solely explained by decrease in revenue in U.K. and Germany. The strong growth in Italy in the past years temporarily slowed down as a result of the gradual reopening of the society after the pandemic, but still shows growth year-over-year. The CEECA region increased by 38%, where both Sportsbook and Casino contributed to the growth. Operations in the Baltics developed well, primarily driven by revenue growth in Lithuania, where Sportsbook was positively affected by Euro League in basketball and the Euro 2020. Revenue in Georgia continued to increase year-over-year and the newly started licensed operations in Croatia show high level of activity, and we're able to show the highest level of revenue to date during this quarter. Revenue from the rest of the world grew by 121% compared to the same period last year. And the growth comes from both Sportsbook and Casino. The region's growth is mainly driven by Peru and Chile, where Peru is one of Betsson's larger markets for sports betting and where Betsson is market leader. Betsson was the official regional sponsor of CONMEBOL Copa América, which resulted in increased exposure of Betsson's brand, an increased number of active customers in the LatAm region where Betsson is present. Pending a final regulatory framework, Sportsbook in Brazil, Betsson operates on a horseracing license, under which Betsson is allowed to market themselves and do local sponsorships. To mention some activities, Betsson sponsors Íbis Sports Club who call themselves the worst football team in the world, which became a viral campaign. Another initiative in order to establish a customer database and increased awareness of the brand in Brazil is -- has been the launch of fantasy football. Revenue from markets where Betsson pay local betting duties constitute 32% of the group's revenue, which is a slight decrease year-over-year, mainly related to revenue drop in Germany. Looking on the cost side. Cost of service provider is more or less in line with last year and gross profit amounts to SEK 1.173 billion, which is an increase of SEK 188 million compared to last period -- the same period last year. Gross profit margin is 67%, which is higher than the second quarter last year and higher than the first quarter of this year, mainly explained by product mix, where the share of Sportsbook revenue has increased in relation to total revenue. Betsson's proprietary Sportsbook makes the business model very scalable, and we, therefore, benefit from in key sporting activity as we've seen in relations to the larger tournaments such as the Euro and the Copa América in this quarter. Marketing spend increased by SEK 66 million compared to last year and constitute some 18% of revenue and 25% when also including affiliate marketing. I've previously mentioned us being the official sponsor of Copa América and the sponsorship of Ibis in Brazil as marketing campaigns in the LatAm region. But we've also focused resources in local European markets in relation to the Euro, where the push of early payouts in the Nordics market is one example. Personnel cost has increased in the second quarter compared to same period last year due to scaling up the B2B organization and geographical expansion, including M&A and adding new employees. The SGA fine received last year in June was overruled by the Swedish Administrative Court in June this year. The fine impacted last year's figure by SEK 20 million negatively, and this year's figure positively by the same amount due to the reversal of the provision made. Adjusting for the effect from the fine, other cost is more or less flat year-over-year. Cost spent on development on new market is in line with previous quarters and amounts to approximately SEK 50 million. And the business acquired in the past years has contributed with some 150 new employees. EBIT amounts to SEK 383 million, which is all-time high, an increase of 76% year-over-year, driven by revenue growth and increased share of Sportsbook as part of the total revenue. EBIT margin is 22%. Organically, EBIT increased by 120% to SEK 478 million. On the cash flow side, cash flow from operating activities amounts to SEK 571 million, driven by operating income and positively impacted by changes in the working capital. Impact from working capital is mainly explained by a refund of VAT claims in Malta. Cash flow from investing activities, mainly related to investments in our proprietary technology and the acquisition of shares in associated companies. Cash flow from financing activities impacted the cash flow by SEK 580 million and relates to repayment of the RCF and dividend paid to shareholders. Last year, dividend was paid out in July and impact of the cash flow in Q3. During the second quarter, Betsson's RCF has been renewed with 1 year maturity and decreased from previously SEK 800 million to now SEK 500 million. And as of end of June, the RCF was unutilized. Betsson has a low leverage. And as of end of June, a net debt position of SEK 148 million and net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.1% and an equity ratio of 62%.

U
Unknown Attendee

Okay. Thank you, Martin. We welcome back Pontus for additional updates. And after Pontus presentation, we will start the Q&A session.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Thank you. Yes, I'm going to talk about the trading update, where the average daily revenue until the 17th of July was close to 2% higher than the average daily revenue of the full third quarter last year. Adjusted for negative currency effects, the average daily revenue was 8% higher compared to the full quarter last year. Now I'm going to go into the regulatory update. For Sweden, as Martin mentioned, we have received back the money or we didn't even pay it, but we have won the case that we overruled against the Swedish gambling authority. So that's good. Finland has announced that they intend to change the gaming legislation and possibly make an extension of the marketing ban for foreign companies. In Malta, the FATF has gray listed Malta, requiring some impact and changes to the situation. But most analysts expect Malta to be removed from the list within a year's time. In Greece, we have received 2 licenses, 1 for games of chance and 1 for betting, as previously mentioned. In Kenya, the tax has been introduced of 7.5%, which is lower than the previously existing tax on that kind of games. And the marketing ban has recently been lifted from July 12. So now we can start to market our activities in Kenya, which is good. We have been waiting for that for a very long time. So to summarize the quarter, Betsson have reached all-time high in EBIT, in profitability, in active customers, which is very important for the future of the revenue creation and in Sportsbook revenues. And this is all driven by our stable and scalable business model. Expansion and increase of customer base in Latin America has been successful through the CONMEBOL Copa América sponsorship. The launch of Greece and Belarus are paving way for further expansion and growth. We have been strengthened our B2B offering by the Strive and Masterpiece agreements. So that's the summary of the quarter.

U
Unknown Attendee

Okay. Then it's time for Q&A. [Operator Instructions] Before I hand over to the operator, I would like to ask you Pontus and Martin, is there anything particular or any key takeaways from the quarter that you would like to highlight? Would you Pontus?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes, I can start. Of course, I'm really proud about the high profitability, which shows that we have a cost control in the company. And it's also a proof that our Sportsbook is very competitive. But even more so for this special quarter, I would like to highlight the customer intake and the customer activity because that's really what's important with those tournaments. Of course, they add some revenues to the top line. But the most important thing is the ability to get new clients. And there, we have really succeeded this quarter. So that pays -- that gives us a good situation for going forward in future quarters.

U
Unknown Attendee

Martin, would you like to add something?

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

I think I would like to push for 2 things in this quarter. And I think what we're seeing in this quarter is the scalability of our business model, and it's really, really -- I'm really happy to see that once sort of we see large tournament like this, we really see the benefits from our scalability in the business model. And then secondly, I'm also very proud to see that and happy to see that the work we have done in -- especially in the LatAm regions for quite a long time now is paying off and that we see, as Pontus said, through the sort of a new customer intake.

U
Unknown Attendee

Okay. If we look at the Sportsbook, it looks like the turnover down, but the revenue is up. Can you please elaborate on this?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes. Turnover is down a bit quarter-on-quarter. But you can never look at turnover as an isolated KPI because the turnover is depending on the profitability of the Sportsbook. So now we had a higher profitability in the Sportsbook, higher margin and then the turnover automatically goes down.

U
Unknown Attendee

Great. Thank you for your answers. With that said, let's hand over to the operator and see if there's any questions via phone.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Erik Moberg from ABG.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

First of all, could you perhaps elaborate a bit on the sports margins for the Euro and Copa América in its final stages and whether the Q3 trading update was inflated by this?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes. I don't know exactly how the margin was at the end of the tournaments, but the activity was, for sure, quite high. But it's not that the tournaments inflate the figures as such because in other cases, we have other events going on. So now it's the tournaments. In other quarters, there's other things going on.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

Got it. But I mean looking historically, I mean, Euros and the World Cup in soccer is always sort of given -- contributed a certain amount of revenue -- Would you say that Copa América this year has contributed in a similar manner for -- both for Q2 as well as the start of Q3?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Of course, they contribute a bit to the revenues, but that's normal. But -- and then again, the tournaments stopped already after a few 11 days in that period. So there have been a few days as well without the impact of the tournaments.

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

And what also should be kept in mind is that there are fewer games in the later part of the tournaments, i.e., there are fewer games in July than we saw in the beginning of the tournaments.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

But looking at the Copa América this year, I mean, you had quite an increase in the rest of the world. I mean, is it fair to assume that Copa has contributed an equal amount of the Euros?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Equal amount. We don't split those amounts and communicate the split between the tournaments. But both tournaments has, of course, contributed. But the big takeaway from this is how we have managed to capitalize on the marketing and bringing new customers. And that is something that will kick off the activity once the soccer leagues kicks off, which happens in the middle of August.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

Got it. And then just when you calculate revenue when you exclude the currency effects, are you also adjusting for inflation? Because I mean, at the moment, you have a large business in Turkey, which has roughly 18% inflation. Yes, and if we compare with Sweden of roughly 1%, could you perhaps elaborate a bit on this?

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

We don't adjust anything for inflation. We only -- the only adjustment that you see in the organic measure is currency.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

Got it. And then just going back to the underlying performance here. Obviously, you elaborated a bit on your view on the turnover, but still -- it's still witnessed a decline of roughly 4.5% Q-on-Q despite you have -- you should have an uptick in activity from Euros in the Copa. And when we -- and if I normalize the Sportsbook margins here, it appears that revenue is down roughly 8% year-over-year. If you could elaborate a bit more here on the outlook from the turnover level here and also for casino. Because I mean, based upon this, it appears like you will go ex growth during H2.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes. To elaborate further on that is that we have the highest revenue from Sportsbook ever in the quarter, and that's a good starting point. We have a lot of new clients that we have taken in during the tournament. So we are very optimistic about the future in the Sportsbook even for this quarter, the third quarter and also going forward.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

So do you expect to grow the turnover base from this level going forward?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

We don't really give any projections on the turnover because, as I said, it's depending on margin, et cetera, but we have high expectations on our Sportsbook going forward.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

And in regard to casino, what do you see so far in July? Do you see any sort of -- obviously, you always have a little bit of a negative seasonality effect, but do you see any sort of negative reopening effect?

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

I think the biggest impact that we have seen, as I said earlier, is coming from the drop in revenue in U.K. and in Germany, which are casino-heavy markets. So I think that is more important to emphasize on rather than any sort of gradual reopenings of any of the countries in terms of casino, I think as of now.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

Yes. Yes. Got it. But in the underlying market activity in U.K. and Germany -- I mean, in the U.K., where you sort of have changed strategy a bit and still down on your operations. What do you see there? Is it still sort of do you see any negative effect for the underlying market?

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

U.K. going forward is a pretty small market for us. So that will not be the one sort of driving any forecast going forward, what happens in the U.K. for us.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

No. And I think on a higher level, we believe that the pandemic that has been going on for quite some time. It has pushed the transformation to digital gaming on a broader scale, and that's there to stay. So we look forward to success also in the casino part of the business.

E
Erik Moberg
Research Analyst

So you don't expect any negative reopening effects for casino during the second half?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

No, we don't.

Operator

Our next question comes from the line of Oscar Erixon from Carnegie.

O
Oscar Erixon
Financial Analyst

A couple of questions from me, starting with the impressive performance in the Rest of World region and Latin America. First of all, what can you say about customer preferences in LatAm generally between slots like casino and sports. And also, do you see good signs there for retention, customer retention after a strong recent momentum in LatAm?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes. In LatAm, the customers are more used to sports betting, and of course, they have been following sports forever, I would say. But we can see a strong uptake also in casino, and it's a learning curve and an acceptance curve that's going on. So we have high expectations from casino for the future for that region.

O
Oscar Erixon
Financial Analyst

Great. And Germany, if I understood correctly, revenue was at similar levels to Q1. First of all, is that correct? And what do you see ahead here in terms of sales and earnings?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes, that's correct on the first question. And then looking forward on Germany, it's hard for us to tell how the market is going to play out. Obviously, there are strong restrictions on the casino offering. And now it's down to quite small figures for us. So we will give that market a go, and we will do our best, but there are quite hard regulations, which has an impact on the player preference between regulated and unregulated sites.

O
Oscar Erixon
Financial Analyst

Understood. And then again on Germany, how does your product offering look in Germany currently also in terms of game margin versus betting duties? Is it a decent equation? And also if you could talk a little bit about sort of what types of players are taking market share and how that may develop ahead?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes. I can't answer in detail on the product offering for the casino games. But obviously, the casino games needs to be rebuilt in order to sustain with a high level of turnover tax. And these products should most likely aim for the lower value customers and the VIPs will not play with the regulated sites because it's not an interesting product offering.

O
Oscar Erixon
Financial Analyst

Got it. And then, I mean, the other European markets, is excluding Germany, U.K. and potentially also Italy, which you mentioned, performed a little bit slower here in, I guess, June primarily. What are you seeing in the other markets? Any sort of opening up effects although you may have partly answered that already.

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

Not really. I mean, as we said, the 5% decrease that we see, it is mainly explained by Germany and U.K. year-over-year. So I think it's too early to tell. But as Pontus said, we think that we have sort of taken a step to a new level of digitalization and new customer behavior in terms of casino.

O
Oscar Erixon
Financial Analyst

And then a final question from me. Casino side in the Nordics, a bit soft. I mean, similar levels as in Q1 despite seemingly quite solid Swedish performance. And in Q1, you had problems with payments in Norway. Is Norway looking better if the the problems solved there? Anything else to highlight?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Norway is looking better. As you said, Sweden is moving along strongly and Denmark as well. So we are quite confident for the near-term future for the Nordic market for casino.

O
Oscar Erixon
Financial Analyst

Great. And then just a final question for me. I mean growth year-on-year quite slow in -- at the start of Q3 versus the full Q3 last year. Is it fair to say that you assume an improvement in the year-on-year growth for the full Q3 as football leagues open up and as you capitalize on the user intake here from Q2?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Definitely, we expect at least activity to go up big time by the -- already by the mid of August. So we believe that the second half of the third quarter will be a lot stronger. And I've been in this industry for a very long time. So I've seen many third quarters, and they are always the same they start off, very softly, and then they kick off and the second half is always stronger. So we expect that to happen this year as well.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from the line of Martin Arnell from DNB.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

So my first question is on the timing for the U.S. launch. And if you can update us with, if anything has changed on your views and discussions with potential future partners, et cetera?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Not much. We had to delay the planned opening a bit due to the -- all the measures that we have to do before we can launch. But we find ourselves in a good position. And now we look forward to opening in the first quarter instead of the fourth quarter, that's the only change.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

Are you tempted to sort of have a look at other states already? Or is that too early to talk about?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

We don't have any other B2C plans for other states for the time being. We want to launch Colorado. We want to fine-tune it and make it work good. And then we want to push our B2B offering as hard as we can in all the regulated states.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

And what about the interest for your B2B? Do you have incoming -- or are you sort of marketing it somehow? Or how does that work? When will you start to make it more visible for the future Americans?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes, we are already, of course, working on the market. We are contacting potential clients. So we are working our way towards our first deal.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

Okay. And then on the -- you mentioned that you're proud of the customer intake in the quarter, which was strong. How sticky should we expect the new customers to be here? Can you say anything on your expectations of the quality on these customers? Is it normal? Or is it any changes to before?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

No, I think what we usually see in these tournaments is that we bring in plenty of customers. Then, of course, not all of those customers become permanent customers, but some of them become permanent customers. And that's good. So we believe that we will be working out from a higher level after the tournaments when the sports kicks off shortly.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

Okay. And the B2B system revenue is still growing really strongly year-on-year. But I think I noted it was down quarter-on-quarter. Could you elaborate on why it was down?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

It's a little bit -- we have a large part of our B2B revenues from Realm and Realm customer base is not really as interested in the international tournaments as other customer bases. So it's a matter of market mix.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

Thanks for clarifying that. And then I want to...

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

I think also there's a currency effect, of course, in that figure as well. And I think that's evident when you look at organic figures as well.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

Yes. Fair enough. And you're right in the report that you have new live casino provider and you're diversifying your live revenue. And I just want to ask sort of how that is going for you? And is the product from the new provider as high quality as the old one?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

We don't want to rate different suppliers. Obviously, it's good for operator as Betsson to have more than one supplier in any product segment, and we're happy that we now have more than one supplier.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

Okay. And my final question is on the Malta discussion. You mentioned that you're, to some extent, concerned about this development. And that it could have operational effects on the companies in Malta. What kind of operational effects could that be? Just so we understand the risk here.

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

I mean, what they are focused on is the AML part of it. And obviously, banks are a lot interested in know your customer and AML. So maybe if we should rate one risk that is a little bit higher than it should maybe be sort of the banking part of it.

M
Martin Arnell
Analyst

Okay. So it's more a comment on referring to financial institutions and Malta rather than you and your peers.

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

Yes.

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes.

Operator

We have no more questions from the line. I will hand it back to our speakers.

U
Unknown Attendee

Okay. Thank you for your questions and for your replies. Let's go over to the questions that has been sent in via the web page. We have done a few strategic M&As in the last couple of months. How is the direct M&A turnover pipeline? Were our buybacks more preferred at the moment as the valuation of the stock is low?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

We are always -- M&A is a part of our growth strategy. So we are always looking at the M&A opportunities. So we -- I think it's fair to say that we always have an M&A pipeline. And we always compare our possibility to buy back shares with M&A, and that is rated on an ongoing. We do that all the time.

U
Unknown Attendee

What are your expectations for Kenya/Africa in the next 12 to 24 months?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

My expectation is that we finally can kick off the operation there and see what kind of traction we will get. It's been a long period of planning and setting things up and then an even longer period of waiting. But now we are kicking off and I'm looking forward to see how we will perform in the next 3 to 6 months.

U
Unknown Attendee

With regards to the U.S. launch, you're talking about Strive providing a modern platform, giving you a very competitive Sportsbook offer. Can you elaborate a bit more what you mean by a modern product. In what regards will it differ from the other Sportsbook in the U.S.?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

We are -- first of all, we are building our own Sportsbook, which is the Betsson Sportsbook, which gets the totally new U.S. interface. And then that will be connected to a platform called the PAM usually in the U.S. provided by Strive. And when we did the evaluation, we like their product a lot. There are certainly other good products in the U.S. on the PAM side and on the Sportsbook side, but we know that players wants diversity and they want to have different offerings to choose from. So I think this offering will form a very competitive one against the existing ones.

U
Unknown Attendee

Can you please elaborate a bit more around the trading update and shed some light on how the income normally is distributed between the first part of Q3 compared to the second part of Q2?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Yes, I think I mentioned that previously that it's always like this that the third quarter starts off slowly. There's vacation time, there's not much sports going on after the tournament has ended. And then the big soccer league starts more or less all in parallel, and then it kicks off strongly. So we look forward to a strong activity by the second half of this quarter.

U
Unknown Attendee

If we look out, let's say, 1, 2 quarters, what will be your main focus going forward?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

That's a big question. We have a lot of focus, I was about to say. But of course, what we do in the U.S. is very interesting. And when you say 2 quarters, you will be close to launch time or about launch time in the U.S. So that's something which I will follow very, very closely.

U
Unknown Attendee

Okay. Anything you would like to add, Martin, on that?

M
Martin Ă–hman
Chief Financial Officer

No. But of course, it's in everything in line with our strategy. We are looking to expand and harvest from what we have done in the LatAm region now and also looking into new markets and expanding, that's sort of our strategy that we have been going through earlier through this presentation. And I think that is the main sort of message that what we are aiming for.

U
Unknown Attendee

Excellent. Thank you for your replies. That was the final question for today. And with that said, I hand over to Pontus. Do you have any closing words for the audience?

P
Pontus Lindwall
CEO & President

Thanks for attending this presentation. Now we will be looking forward to presenting the third quarter in 3 months' time. See you then. Thanks a lot. Bye.

U
Unknown Attendee

Thank you. Bye-bye.