PAP.L Share News (PAP)

Irish bookmaker Paddy Power has said that overall, its performance between the start of July and mid-November has been in line with expectations, with strong growth in net revenue of 23 per cent and continued significant investment. The paddypower.com website maintained good momentum, with turnover increasing by 28% against the same period the previous year. Activity levels outside of Australia were moderated by a number of factors, including weather related racing cancellations and the Olympics. However, this was offset by favourable sports results which resulted in a gross win percentage above our normal expectations and the equivalent period last year. UK Retailed delivered a solid performance in a competitive high-street environment, with like-for-like net revenue up 5%, driven by strong sportsbook growth of 12%, offsetting a decline in machine gaming of 4%. Irish Retail also performed positively with like-for-like stakes up 0.4% and net revenue up 8%.Online turnover in Australia rose 24% compared to the same period the previous year, and while gaming/B2B net revenue growth slowed during August and September, it returned to strong growth in October and grew by 14% in the period overall. "We now expect to open up to 45 new shops in the UK in 2012," the firm said. "We also continued to progress our portfolio of newer online businesses and to invest in exploring other development opportunities to contribute to longer term growth. "Our leading positions in mobile betting are positively impacting online turnover growth and sportsbook gross win percentages. In October, mobile turnover as a percentage of total online sportsbook stakes was 27% in Australia (June: 25%) and 45% in paddypower.com (June: 41%). The most rapid mobile penetration continues to occur in gaming with mobile gross win in October accounting for 28% of Paddy Power Casino (June: 19%) and 25% of Paddy Power Games (June: 20%)." NR