Integrated lottery, games and entertainment technology company AGTech Holdings has posted its interim results for the six months ended June 30, in which it revealed that lottery sales decreased by roughly 41.7% when compared with the same period in 2019.
The drop saw the lottery record sales of approximately RMB123.9bn, with closures resulting from Chinese Lunar New Year as well as the impact of COVID-19 being cited as significant factors in the decline.
ottery sales activities have since resumed since March 2020 and the group has reiterated that it will continue to closely monitor the latest developments and recovery post pandemic.
In addition to lottery revenues, the posting also revealed that during the six-month review the group won five lottery hardware tenders to supply lottery terminals to the SLACs in Anhui province, Shanxi province, Jilin province, Hubei province and Guizhou province of the PRC.
And with AGTech’s Hardware division primarily supplying both the Sports Lottery and the Welfare Lottery, the group reiterated that it will continue to pursue tenders to supply to the lottery and other hardware markets whilst also continuing bidding for new contracts after the resumption of tenders in the post COVID-19 landscape.
A statement released by AGTech read: “From a lottery products point of view, we have identified instant scratch lottery games to be an important product initiative for the coming year, as we will be dedicating resources to open up this market within the lottery sector.”
Other key metrics reported within the results include a decline in group profits to the tune of circa 8% in the six month period when compared to 2019. The drop was attributed mainly to the decrease in sales of lottery hardware by roughly HK$6.6m.
Regarding overall operating losses for the first six months of 2020, the group also revealed that it had registered HK$105.6m in this vertical, in turn representing a decrease of 12.1% over the corresponding period in 2019.