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Summary of the period

The Group arose during the fourth quarter of 2022. Consequently, the figures presented in this report for the Group do not include any comparison with the corresponding period in the previous year.
 

Second quarter 01/04/2023 – 30/06/2023 (Group)

• Net sales: SEK 6,400 thousand.
• Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA): SEK -1,904 thousand.
• Net loss after financial items: SEK -4,789 thousand.
• Earnings per share: SEK -0.29 before dilution and SEK -0.19 after dilution.
• Investments during the period amounted to SEK -2,356 thousand.
• Cash flow for the period amounted to SEK -1,538 thousand.
   

Six months 01/01/2023 – 30/06/2023 (Group)

• Net sales: SEK 12,971 thousand.
• Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA): SEK -4,198 thousand.
• Net loss after financial items: SEK -10,837 thousand.
• Earnings per share: SEK -0.65 before dilution and SEK -0.44 after dilution.
• Investments during the period amounted to SEK -4,466 thousand.
• Cash flow for the period amounted to -2,924 thousand.

CEO STATEMENT

Considering the difficult prevailing market climate, we view it as a real sign of strength that we are currently in the process of completing a new share issue of SEK 10 million. The new share issue is subject to approval at the Extraordinary General Meeting on September 4 and is fully subscribed in advance. The new share issue makes it possible for us to keep our foot on the gas pedal.

King Royale is continuously optimized to increase retention data (percentage of players who return to the game) and strengthen in-game monetization. New game features such as leaderboards, chat and "social events" where users can compete against each other are being implemented. During the spring, campaigns have been launched in collaboration with Aggregate Media and TikTokers through Wehype. These campaigns have provided valuable information regarding user acquisition and user behavior in the game. King Royale continues to deliver strong KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) which have been noted not only by us, but also by mobile game publishers.

"Our goal - to secure a publishing deal for King Royale with a leading publisher during the second half of the year"

The ranking of King Royale in Apple's Appstore (4.7+) and Google's Playstore (4.3+) and the fact that the game is continuously being "featured" in the Appstore makes our goal - to secure a publishing deal for King Royale with a leading publisher - during the second half of the year - seem completely reasonable.  

Within the EdTech vertical, our German subsidiaries have continued to perform well and deliver. We continue to secure new assignments of varying size and scope, and we are actively striving to advance our position in the German-speaking market within the "Serious Games"/Playful Learning segment. The quality of what we do is shown by the industry awards we receive, most recently "Excellence in Brand Strategy and Creation - Digital solutions & Apps" and "Excellent Brands - Telecommunications & IT" by the German Brand Awards.

An example of a mission I would particularly like to highlight is the collaboration with Meister Cody GmbH, a subsidiary of Ernst Klett GmbH, which is one of the largest publishers of school media with operations in 20 countries. The cooperation concerns the development of standardized training programs. Together with Meister Cody, we have developed a platform for the therapy of dyscalculia (difficulty counting) on behalf of two German universities. The platform will be offered to schools and will be marketed globally through Ernst Klett's network. The first jointly developed product is planned to be marketed in 2024.

"We have just secured a publishing agreement with 2tainment for Tank Operations."

Many people are probably unaware that our German subsidiaries have proprietary games. Recently, approximately SEK 2 million was received in grants from the German Gaming Fund to launch one of our games - Tank Operations. We have just secured a publishing agreement with 2tainment for Tank Operations. In connection with the launch, 2tainment will take over the baton regarding all marketing and monetization.

In addition to Tank Operations, we own Cathedral and the intellectual property rights to Captain Hog & His friends. Of course, our goal here too is publishing agreements with strong publishers.

At the same time, we are also pressing hard on the brake pedal when it comes to our costs. This is happening in several ways. We are working intensively on streamlining costs in our relatively complicated German subsidiary structure. We plan to merge several of the German subsidiaries to reduce the level of overheads and enhance the synergies between the various subsidiaries. All unnecessary costs are to be eliminated! Furthermore, we expect to see a decrease in development costs for King Royale and Cricket Manager this year compared with 2022, quite simply due to fact that major development costs for the games have already been absorbed and that we are nearing the monetization phase. Finally, the significant extraordinary costs relating to, among other things, accounting and administration that resulted from the acquisition of Wegesrand and the rights issue with full prospectus during the second half of 2022 and that have persisted well into 2023 will cease. This is evidenced by the fact that the item "services purchased" in the profit and loss account decreased significantly in the second quarter compared with the previous quarter. The reduced costs are not yet fully visible in the second quarter, but internally we are able to see that the costs have decreased at the end of the quarter and that our German operations actually showed a positive EBITDA for the second quarter.

"The knowledge we gain in the development of King Royale is of course something we intend to pass on to our baby Cricket Manager.

Finally, I would like to point out that the knowledge we gain in the development of King Royale is of course something we intend to utilize in relation to Cricket Manager. A number of technical features in King Royale are planned to be implemented in Cricket Manager, primarily related to technical features that have strongly contributed to strong KPIs. To all our shareholders, I would like to emphasize that we have in no way released Cricket Manager, rather the plan is to allocate additional development resources to Cricket Manager as soon as possible. We have a limited amount of technical resources within the Group and can therefore only develop one game title at a time. The interest in King Royale from external actors has contributed to the decision to focus on King Royale at the moment.

Eric De Basso, CEO
Wicket Gaming AB

For further information, please contact:

Eric De Basso, CEO, Wicket Gaming AB
Email: eric@wicketgaming.com  
Phone: +46 70 780 52 00

This information is information that Wicket Gaming AB is obligated to publish pursuant to the EU’s market abuse regulation. The information was provided under the auspices of the above contact person (CEO), for publication on 25/08/2023 at 08:00.

About Wicket Gaming
Wicket Gaming AB is a Swedish gaming and digital education company consisting of two verticals, Games and EdTech. Within the Games vertical, the business idea is based on developing and distributing free-to-play games ("F2P") within mobile games for Android and iOS. Within EdTech, the Company focuses on developing products in genres such as Game-based Learning and Serious Games, it is in these areas that Wicket Gaming has identified the greatest synergies between the Company's two verticals.

For more information, please see Wicket Gaming’s website: www.wicketgaming.com.