Sportingbet ups year-end forecasts

But, despite a turnover of 9.6m, the company was still in the red, with losses of 439,895. This was a direct result of the company's very low gross margins, which were only 3.94% due to sales costs of 9.26m.

Despite this, the losses seem to be heading downwards compared to the results of the previous six months, with net margins improving from -21.3% in the six months to 30 September 1999, to -4.6% for the three months to 31 December 1999.

With the company claiming that its turnover for the nine months to 31 December 1999 is already exceeding that budgeted, it is revising its projections for the year upwards.

Managing director Mark Blandford said about the results; “We are ahead of budget on turnover and we continue to make progress across key territories. The projection for last quarter was 9m and we achieved 9.6m. Customer signups are currently running at 412% of the same period last year. Given the current growth rate of the business, I am extremely confident that we will exceed our projected turnover of 20.6m on for the year ending March 2000. In view of this, we are currently updating our future projections."