When your company increases revenues by 999 percent in three years and is named one of England's fastest growing technology, you would expect management to proudly present its spectacular financial figures. This is not the case with Orbis.
The British betting technology company, which claims to be the world's No.1 interactive sports book provider, supplies technology for over 75 percent of the United Kingdom's Internet and interactive TV betting applications. Clients include Ladbrokes, MGM Mirage, BSkyB, HardRockCasino.com, Littlewoods, Stanley Leisure, Totalbet, BETDAQ and Rank.com.
Last month Deloitte & Touche, unveiled its fifth annual ranking of London and the South East's fastest growing technology companies, and Orbis was placed fourth in the rankings.
The Technology Fast 50 program focuses on companies that have shown impressive growth rates in the telecommunications, hardware, software and biotechnology markets over the last three financial years. It tracks the growth rates of technology companies in seven U.K. regions as well as Ireland.
The judges awarded the top-five positioning to Orbis based on its impressive revenue growth of 999 percent over the last three years. This year has seen Orbis extend its reach overseas and win a number of significant players from the United States and Australia, including MGM Mirage and Tattersalls. The company initially made its name in the interactive sports betting arena, but is now increasingly being selected for online gaming and casino sites as well. Among its casino partners are Rank.com and HardRockCasino.com.
Based in West London, Orbis is wholly owned by NDS Group plc (NASDAQ/NASDAQ Europe: NNDS) and currently employs 80 people.
Despite Orbis' remarkable growth, its financial scoreboard remains, for the most part, in the dark. According to company spokeswoman Monica Sondhi, "Revenues and profits are included in the 'New Technologies' line of the NDS accounts, but unfortunately we are not allowed to quote these figures separately for Orbis. Orbis is owned by NDS Group plc and is unable to publicly report its financial statistics separately."
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NDS Unaudited Key Financials - Q1 FY03 (Ended Sept. 30, 2002)- Revenue up 4% to £62.5 million (US$97.5 million).
- Operating income before exceptional items and goodwill amortization up 8% to £13.4 million ($20.9 million)
- Employers: over 1,400.
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NDS is a leading supplier of open end-to-end digital-pay TV solutions for the secure delivery of entertainment and information to television set-top boxes and personal computers.
Orbis' OpenBet Interactive Gambling System, an end-to-end solution for establishing and maintaining interactive sportsbook and casino applications, was launched in 1998. With multilingual and multi-currency capabilities, it is designed for high performance and scaleability.
The core of the system is the OpenBet Gambling Engine (OGE), a scaleable OLTP server designed specifically for online wagering applications. The OGE handles all the central system functions, such as customer accounts, registration, electronic payments, game control, event and market setup, settlement, liability management and reporting.
As all the wagering games are integrated directly into the OGE, players can carry out all their activities from single accounts. This means they only have to register once, and the funds in their accounts can be wagered in any area of the site.