There’s trouble Down Under for William Hill, one of the world’s top online gambling operators. According to recent reports, the company has been shedding market share in Australia and that’s not sitting well with investors.
As recently as last week USB, a global financial services firm, once again classified William Hill in the “sell” category. This wasn’t the first time USB has placed William Hill in this category and the company’s stock was relatively unchanged as a result.
Though shareholders haven’t taken a big loss, that doesn’t mean the news is good for William Hill’s Australian operation. USB went on to report that most other operators are experiencing a genuine boom in wager-mad Australia.
USB Analyst Chris Stevens wrote:
The growth in Sportsbet, Ladbrokes and CrownBet over the last three years has intensified competition in the Australian online sportsbetting market, driving William Hill’s market share from 34% to just 12% (of the digital market), and net revenue flat in 2015 versus 2013 despite the market growing at around 15% per year.
Stevens went on to point out that Ladbrokes has experienced growth in Australia of more than 50% last year. William Hill, by way of comparison, only saw 8% growth.
This week’s report was a step backwards for William Hill, which had been experiencing gains in the US and Australian markets earlier this year. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case for Q2. Not only did the company experience a dip in the Australian market, they also experienced a 4% dip in online gambling revenue on their UK operations during that same period.