Q1 is a tone-setter. Within life and within business, starting a year, a season, a day, a task is a strong mantra which helps teams and individuals along until the end. It's also the time when people are receptive to new ideas, prepared for change, be it on a small scale or a big scale. No one wants to be catching up for Q2.
Aspire Global's Q1 2021 review will soon be released on aspireglobal.com. They will be hoping, and expecting, it to reveal figures and projections following the same upwards trajectory which 2020 displayed, especially as 2020's Q1 was the start of a landmark year for the iGaming giant, and 2021's Q1 could set the same precedent.
2020 was a landmark year for Aspire Global, with important acquisitions and new partnerships providing them with new room for growth within established markets and entry into those which they hadn't yet expanded into. Business-to-business solutions have long been what Aspire Global has been known for, but their business-to-consumer site's performance rounds out their portfolio and profile to its global proportions.
Karamba
Aspire Global's B2C product, Karamba, has both online casino and sportsbook offerings and its performance in Q4 2020 was up 29.0% from the previous year. They had reported a healthy increase in new depositors too. It serves as an advertisement for the company's B2B solutions, showing that Aspire Global's services can produce successful products. The iGaming industry on the whole had a good year, which indicates that Karamba benefited from and helped cause the performance.
It's 2021 performance will likely follow a similar line. It's a huge year for sport, with all the usual annual competitions – like the Champions League, NFL, NBA – all scheduled, as well as major international tournaments only held every four years, like football's Euro 2021 and, also, the Tokyo Olympic Games 2021, meaning that Karamba's sportsbook could see more traffic and attention. The iGaming industry hasn't let up either, and, logically working from projections and figures, neither will Aspire Global and Karamba's online casino.
Griffon Casino
Online casinos have long been frontrunners, showing consistent willingness and ability to recognise new technology and integrate them within established products or adopt them for new ones. Aspire Global have been arbiters of this and are now themselves implementing an innovative solution for their B2C product. It's called Pay N Play.
This is a process which streamlines registration for online casinos. Gamers will have and have to spend plenty of time and energy inputting various pieces of information to gain access to a site to play games. As with any online registration, it produces aches and pains and groans. Pay N Play is where a customer can register with Trustly, a fintech company, who secures and holds a customer's data, that customer receives a bank ID from Trustly which they can use at partnered online casinos which then creates the account for them, sending them straight on to the tables.
Griffon Casino is Karamba's first pure Pay N Play casino. It offers a glimpse at the possible further expansions and emphasis Aspire Global are placing on their B2C products, which will likely be more reflected in Q2, Q3, and Q4 reviews.
International Markets
One of Aspire Global's key acquisitions in 2020 was of BtoBet. They are a B2B solutions company, who offered their services to both online gambling companies and sportsbooks. The deal was completed for €20M, plus a variable figure based on future earnings in September.
This purchase offers immediate access to areas of the market that they wanted to further embed themselves into. BtoBet had a global market share, stretching into South America, Africa, and parts of Europe. In the company's Q4 review, it was stated that one goal for 2021 is to expand their sports offerings in these areas of the globe – with the United States of America also being key. This should enable them to appeal to tier 1 operators and improve their market share for their B2B offerings. BtoBet is a gateway to this. It follows a similar blueprint to that of their Pariplay purchase in 2019.
Partnerships and acquisitions are key strategies for growth, but so is organic growth. Both of these approaches had seen them reach new markets in 2020 – Spain, Russia, and West Virginia. Their BtoBet move at the end of 2020 was quick and swift, and put them in a strong position, globally, within a short period of time. 2021's Q1 is likely to have figures represent their growth and solidity in those newer and more secure markets via these acquisitions, allowing them to assess where they are in relation to projections, before looking to go on the offensive again.
2021 won't see Aspire Global take their foot off the pedal. They will likely be admiring the view as they're on the move, searching for new land.