Gaming company Catena Media saw its revenue and new customers decrease by a third last year, according to financial results published this week.
The company’s total revenue dropped by almost €50 million, a reduction of 35% compared to the year before, with the largest losses seen in its sports betting activities, which accounted for two-thirds of its total revenue losses.
Meanwhile, the number of new customers making a deposit fell by 30% to just under 129,000.
Catena Media attributed the losses to underperformance and competitive pressures in its North American market, which last year accounted for almost nine-tenths (88%) of its total revenue.
Last year, the company’s North American revenue dropped by almost €44 million - a reduction of a third from 2023.
The results for the last quarter of the year paint a similar picture to the overall results, with revenue from October to December down by more than €4 million – a 30% drop from the previous quarter – and new depositing customers down by one fifth.
Headquartered in Malta, Catena Media is an affiliate marketing company for online sports and casino gambling operators that employs over 150 people globally. It has offices in Sweden and is planning to open an office in Miami, Florida, in the second half of the year.
Announcing its financial results, the company said it had introduced a “three day-per-week return to work” for its Malta staff, a measure it said would be fully implemented later this year.
The firm said its profits had been hit by a €1.2 million charge related to projected losses from an artificial intelligence-powered content generation platform, a joint venture it has since decided to discontinue.
It said it managed to recoup €700,000 of its original investment in the venture after acquiring the business last month.
Explaining its losses in North America, Catena Media said that in its sports betting activities – which saw the greatest losses – its efforts had been hampered by the cancellation of some media partnerships and “volatility” in web searches due to Google changing its algorithms.
Changes by the search engine giant also affected the company’s casino activities by hitting its search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts, it said, while casino revenue from Japan, Europe and Latin America fell due to lower player engagement.
Despite the challenges, however, the company said it had “streamlined” its content production and marketing teams to cut costs, with the changes expected to deliver annual savings of €2.2 million.
Meanwhile, the firm said it had fully repaid a €10 million revolving credit facility – a kind of flexible loan arrangement – and was now in a position to repay a senior unsecured bond due in June following the sale of its AskGamblers website, lowering its overall interest payments in the second half of this year.
While acknowledging the company had “spread its resources too thinly” in the past, CEO Manuel Stan said Catena Media was aiming to address this by focusing on its top-performing websites and products.
“While Q4 results continued to disappoint, we significantly improved our profitability through cost optimisation. Our underlying revenue has stabilised in recent quarters, providing a foundation from which we can build," he said.
“Catena Media enters 2025 as a more focused organisation... With a leaner organisation, a stronger balance sheet and a clear strategic roadmap, I remain confident in our future direction.”