The French lottery giant La Française des Jeux (FDJ) has reported significant growth in its first quarter, buoyed by the surge in online gaming and a steady performance from its lottery offerings. The company’s gaming revenue for Q1 stood at €645m, marking a 3.1% increase over the same period last year. Illustrating a remarkable trajectory, FDJ’s online games segment hit the €100m revenue mark, accounting for nearly one-fifth of the group’s overall gaming income.
This continued success is viewed as being in harmony with the company’s ambitious revenue growth target of 8% through 2024. Although just falling shy of this benchmark, the upcoming European Championships and Olympic Games set to take place in Paris may provide the necessary leverage for FDJ to meet their goal, indicating a potentially lucrative horizon for the organization.
The FDJ, a formidable player in the gaming industry, has good cause for celebration with their lottery revenue seeing a 1.4% increase, accumulating to €504m in comparison to €497m reported in the prior year’s same quarter. Notably, the revenue from sports betting and competitive online gaming rose to €141m, which is a significant jump of 9.5% from Q1 of 2023.
The company’s revenue streams extend beyond gaming alone. Other business segments, such as payment and services, demonstrated an impressive performance with revenues rising to €65m, which is a profound increase of 77.4% from the €37m recorded in the last Q1. This diversified growth beyond traditional lottery offerings illustrates the depth and resilience of FDJ’s business model in an ever-evolving market.
Stéphane Pallez, the chairwoman and chief executive of FDJ Group, underscored the positive start to the year aligned with their 2024 goals and attributed the growth to the network’s strength of over 29,000 retailers and the dynamism of the online gaming sector. According to Pallez, this sector now represents a significant portion – 15% – of the Group’s gaming revenue.
The lottery sector’s aggregate revenue boost was primarily driven by the more than 4% growth in instant games. Contrarily, draw games experienced a slight downturn with revenue contracting by 3%. FDJ’s sports betting and online gaming sectors have flourished even in comparison to last year’s quarter, which saw abnormal gains due to the prolongation of the World Cup in Qatar, concluding in December 2022.
FDJ has specially credited ParionsSport En Ligne, its online sports betting wing, for a substantial part of this growth spurt, with revenues climbing by over 25%. Interestingly, even when excluding the impacts from recent acquisitions, namely ZEturf and Premier Lotteries Ireland, the core growth in FDJ’s online gaming revenue was still over 20%, propelled primarily by sports betting and online lottery ventures.
In a robust move to consolidate its market presence, the FDJ launched an acquisition bid in January worth SEK27.96bn (£2.10bn/€2.45bn/$2.67bn) for the entire outstanding share capital of Kindred Group. Echoing the importance of this strategic initiative, FDJ expressed that the acquisition would result in the creation of the second largest operator in European gaming, with raised prospects for earnings and revenue.
Looking toward the future with optimism, Pallez confirmed the ongoing progress pertaining to the acquisition of Kindred, which was publicly announced at the conclusion of January. This strategic move is expected to bolster FDJ’s position within the industry and stimulate further revenual and earning capabilities in the increasingly competitive gaming landscape. With such strategic investments and a favorable sports calendar on the horizon, FDJ is poised to continue making waves in the global gaming market.
