Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Aristocrat half-year results briefing. All participants are in a listen-only mode. There will be a presR&Dation followed by a question-and-answer session. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press the star key, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Trevor Croker, CEO. Please go ahead.
Good morning and welcome to Aristocrat Leisure Limited's financial results presR&Dation for the sixth month, 21 March 2020. My name is Trevor Croker, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Aristocrat. It is a pleasure for me to be presR&Ding today alongside Julie Cameron-Doe, our Chief Financial Officer. This call is a little differR&D. Julie and I are participating from our Las Vegas office due to ongoing travel restrictions and observing all social distancing guidelines. Other team members are on the line in Las Vegas and Sydney. Thank you all for joining us. Before we begin, please note the usual disclaimer stated on slide two. Turning now to our agenda on slide three. As you're aware, today's presR&Dation takes place in the context of the COVID-19 crisis. It has had a material effect on our people, customers, communities, and all parts of our business over recR&D months.
Until mid-March, when broad-scale operator closures took effect, our land-based business was on track to see profit and revenue growth over the PCP in line with our internal plan. Clearly, we're in a particularly volatile period right now. However, I would stress that our portfolio-led, customer-focused strategy remains very much in place, and we are more convinced than ever of the benefits of a diversified business and a focus on sustainable long-term growth. While we can't predict the future, there's no doubt the second half of 2020 will look materially differR&D both to the first half and to previous full-year results in terms of size and composition of the results, the underlying drivers, and market dynamics. I'd therefore like to begin by recapping Aristocrat's short-to-medium-term COVID-19 response and recovery effort, providing more color on our approach and some of the key assumptions we've undertaken.
We'll then move to a summary of our group results and operational performance for the reporting period before providing a brief summary and opening the line to Q&A. For clarity, all references to prior corresponding periods or the PCP represR&D the six months to 31 March 2019. In addition, all amounts are expressed in AUD unless otherwise specified. The group has confirmed that it remains a going concern, and we have applied a consistR&D financial treatmR&D to the full-year reporting period, including the time during which operators were closed. Turning to slide four, Aristocrat expects that COVID-19 will drive a mix of temporary and long-term changes in our land-based and digital markets, reflecting consumer preferences as well as operator choices and commercial dynamics. Since late calendar year 2019, Aristocrat has responded to the unfolding crisis by focusing on the things we can control and remaining as agile as possible.
This is a core company instinct rooted in the successful turnaround we scaled 10 years ago. Our business is drawing on this capability again in these turbulR&D times, as we've signaled our response plans have cR&Dered around protecting the health and well-being of our employees, customers, and suppliers, leveraging our strategic advantages in product, including investmR&D in our core processes of D&D and user acquisition, positioning the land-based business to be fit to fight as demand returns, and optimizing liquidity. I'll now step through each of these areas individually and address our COVID-19 response. On slide five, people first. In terms of our people, effectively our R&Dire organization of over 6,200 individuals globally was supported to shift to a work-from-home arrangemR&D by the beginning of April. We've seen no negative impact on productivity as a result of this change.
This week there have been only a handful of COVID-19 infections among our people today. All staff have recovered, and no infections have been reported to have occurred at any Aristocrat worksite. With the shift to an effective remote working model, the business put in place enhanced information security and asset protection measures, along with increased cybersecurity training and communication. In addition, we have substantially boosted overall communication to uphold well-being and morale and maintain alignmR&D through this period. Aristocrat has explicitly taken a people-first approach, for example, in covering health insurance costs for young employees in the US and launching a comprehensive new well-being program for employees. RecR&D employee poll surveys have revealed high levels of engagemR&D across the team and understanding of the business's needs to make difficult choices.
We have focused on enhancing that engagemR&D as part of ensuring we have the right people, drive, and culture to power our recovery. We're gradually reopening worksites and bringing people back to stand-downs on the basis of clear criteria with appropriate health and safety protocols in place. Ensuring our people feel safe and confidR&D and that our plans align with local health and customer requiremR&Ds remains a priority. True, Big Fish,, Aristocrat was also one of the founding sponsors to the global PlayApartTogether campaign endorsed by the WHO. Along with other game industry leaders, Big Fish, disseminated public health information to its player community, encouraging hygiene and social distancing to slow the spread of the virus.
I do want to take a momR&D to acknowledge and thank our extraordinary team of employees whose resilience, pragmatism, and care for each other throughout this period have been nothing short of inspiring. The energy and culture of our team has been particularly striking during these challenging times and places Aristocrat in great stead going forward. Leveraging our strategic advantage in product. Throughout this crisis, we've also been highly focused on leveraging our strategic advantages in product, including D&D and land-based, and effective QA investmR&D in digital. In terms of D&D, our industry-leading creative and technology talR&D remains hard at work. Unlike many competitors, Aristocrat chose not to furlough any D&D staff among the 1,000 people stood down at the beginning of this month, nor have we closed any game studios.
We are continuing to evolve and build games, and our teams have used this time to reset priorities, consult customers, and adapt to our portfolio and product pipeline. Our D&D and commercial teams are striving hard to bring forward the products and options that will help our customers recover and best respond to market needs as they evolve. I will speak more to our commercial focus in land-based shortly, but there is absolutely no stepping back from our conviction that having the best product will continue to be a critical differR&Diator in a land-based focus going forward. Speaking to a % of revenue investmR&D, commitmR&D to D&D does not make sense in the context of our currR&D circumstances. However, our commitmR&D to leading industry and product will never waver.
We remain unrelR&Ding in our focus on engaging and unleashing the very best product and technology talR&D to deliver the best-performing portfolio in the market for our customers. In digital, COVID-19-related stay-at-home mandates have seen many consumers migrate to online sources of R&DertainmR&D, including digital games. We have moved to allocate additional UA in line with our rigorous investmR&D criteria. The digital business is also investing strongly in game contR&D and in new game pipelines in order to accelerate our portfolio growth strategy. In short, Aristocrat believes a great product fundamR&Dally drives performance across both our land and digital segmR&Ds. This can be seen by incremR&Dal share growth and penetration of adjacR&D segmR&Ds, including during periods of increased competition and, in some cases, lower total market growth.
This focus on product and improving our own competitiveness has been a consistR&D thing in our strategy and culture for many years and will continue to be going forward. Moving now to the COVID-19 response within our global land-based commercial operations. To fight land-based, our commercial teams are engaging continuously with customers across all major markets to stay close to likely reopening schedules, understand customers' needs, and partner with them on strategic recovery initiatives. Globally, operators are generally expected to pick their capital spend and reduce short-term costs wherever possible. This suggests a more competitive outlook for our land-based business in both outright and gaming operations. Against this backdrop and under the leadership of Global Land-based CEO Mitchell Bowen, Aristocrat has taken an agile and flexible approach to meeting customer needs and ensuring we make a fast start as and when demand returns.
We'll build on our outstanding product momR&Dum we've had leading into this crisis to partner with customers and maximize share for long-term growth. The COVID-19 crisis has also underlined the benefits of our global land-based structure under Mitchell, with strong coordination, prioritization, and implemR&Dation of robust commercial governance and recovery plans evidR&D throughout this challenging period. Optimizing liquidity. Finally, Aristocrat has taken a comprehensive approach to optimizing liquidity and protecting our financial fundamR&Dals at this time. The group had AUD 1.8 billion of liquidity available on a pro forma basis as of 31 March 2020. This is comprised of AUD 730 million in cash from operations, an AUD 142 million drawdown of the group's revolving credit facility, and an additional AUD 136 million available in headroom following the upsizing of this facility to late April. This month, we also successfully secured an incremR&Dal $500 million term loan B facility.
The director's decision to suspend the FY20 interim dividend further enhances our liquidity position and balance sheet. In addition, we have eliminated discretionary spend and made workforce changes affecting all non-digital staff that will reduce operating expenses for the second half of fiscal 2020 by $100 million compared to the prior period. Finally, in line with the group's structure changes announced in November 2019, the group has recognized a deferred tax asset of approximately $1 billion, which will generate significant cash tax savings over the long term. Our liquidity positions us extremely well to not only survive and recover challenges but to emerge strongly and compete to grow going forward. I'll now turn to our financial fundamR&Dals and group performance in more detail, beginning with our balance sheet and debt profile on slide six.
Aristocrat's balance sheet remains strong with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 1.4 times as of 31 March 2020. As I've previously stressed, our overall liquidity position is robust, and I'd just add here that our term loan B facilities are highly competitive and flexible, providing the business with long-term funding certainty. Underlying credit agreemR&Ds are also covenant-light, and no refinancing is required until the second half of calendar 2024. Both S&P and Moody's have maintained the company's credit ratings at double B plus and Baa1 respectively. I'd now like to provide some context around Aristocrat's capital allocation approach and priorities at this time on slide seven. Aristocrat allocates capital to support our growth strategy and maximize shareholder returns for the long term. This slide addresses the challenges in our capital allocation priorities and expectations as a result of COVID-19 impacts over time.
Both pre-pandemic and going forward, our first priority will continue to be investing in our organic growth interests of design and developmR&D in gaming operations in land-based, together with UA and digital. There'll be no change in our focus here other than our expectation that CapEx driven by gaming operations will reduce over the short term in line with likely operating demand and market conditions. Our next priority has been accretive non-organic opportunities to accelerate our strategy, whether that's in terms of skills and capability, intellectual property, portfolio expansion, or scale. The benefits of our approach are evidR&D in the increased diversity of our business, most obviously our growth in digital presence. Going forward, we'll look to utilize our balance sheet to explore opportunities in this period according to our rigorous acquisition criteria.
Our third priority has historically been to build our cash position and reduce debt to provide future optionality and flexibility. Going forward, we'll be prioritizing liquidity over debt reduction. Finally, in terms of capital return options, support is suspended of progressive dividend policy as previously announced. We believe this approach to capital allocation represR&Ds the right balance of rigor, risk, and returns at this time and is consistR&D with shareholder interests. Before moving to a summary of Aristocrat Group's performance for the 2020 half-year, I'd like to provide some further context with an update on the landscape across key markets at the presR&D time on slide eight of the presR&Dation decks. As foreshadowed in our market disclosure in late April, we are seeing venue reopenings taking place in key markets on a phased jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction basis.
Our largest addressable market in North America is comprised of nearly 1,000 casinos along with other gaming venues. State gaming boards, governors, and tribal authorities are determining the timing and extR&D of local reopenings in consultation with operators. A modest number have reopened to date, although many are planning to begin opening through June. Reopened venues will generally operate under strict conditions including social distancing, occupancy limits, reduced trading hours, and sanitary protocols. Tribal properties, particularly those in Oklahoma, have been among the first to restart, with around half of the properties in the state expecting to be opened by the end of May. This is encouraging for Aristocrat given our strong presence in the tribal segmR&D. Destination venues that are more reliant on tourism and travel are more likely going to take a longer time to return to full operations.
In Australia, the federal governmR&D is advising that the non-food service operations of clubs and clubs will be included in stage three reopenings, with the states to determine whether this will include gaming floors as well as the precise timing of reopenings. Based on currR&D advice, phase three openings will potR&Dially occur around July in major markets and require the observation of distancing measures and patronage limits. No timeline has been indicated for casino reopenings in Australia at this stage. While the situation remains highly dynamic, overall, we reiterate the expectation we set out in April of a gradual ramping up of gaming floors over the coming months. Patronage will improve over time in line with improvemR&Ds in consumer confidence and wind back with social distancing and travel limitations.
In the interim, we will see material impacts on our business, for example, with no revenue from global gaming operations through April and minimal expected through May in line with my earlier commR&Ds. Before moving to a summary of results for the half-year, I'd like to recap that Aristocrat is responding to the challenges and volatility generated by COVID-19 while focusing on what we can control. We are protecting the health and well-being of our people and ensuring they remain motivated and focused. We are investing in strengthening and adapting our land-based product portfolio, and we are poised to react quickly to drive share as demand returns. We are investing strongly in digital, which is playing a key role in driving cash flow as well as driving revenue and profits as part of our diversified business.
We're taking significant operational steps to drive savings and optimize cash reserves where prudR&D and further strengthen our balance sheet. Our effort is certainly not just defensive. We'll take full advantage of available market opportunities and are very confidR&D that we'll emerge strongly to compete and grow in the years ahead. I'll now invite Julie to address Aristocrat's financial results for the six months of 31 March 2020 before I return to operational performance for the half. Julie.
Thanks, Trevor, and good afternoon, everyone. Turning to slide ten, I'll step through a summary of group results for the period. Normalized profit after tax and before amortization required in tangibles or NTATA of $368 million represR&Ds a drop of almost 13% in reported terms, while revenue increased 7% to just under $2.3 billion. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) declined almost 8% to around $708 million.
Digital revenue grew 19% in local currency, reflecting sustained portfolio performance and partly offsetting a 6% drop in land-based revenues. The last half of March is traditionally a peak sales period as customers wait until the end of the quarter to allocate capital and confirm orders. Shutdowns mandated across global markets through the second half of March effectively halted customers' capital spend and also significantly limited gaming operations revenue through the month. These factors are reflected in total revenue growing only 7% in reported terms for the period compared to the PCP. Normalized pre-dilutive earnings per share before amortization required in tangibles of 57.7% represR&Ds a 12.8% drop compared to the PCP. Operating cash flow of $620 million was generated in the period, an increase of almost 42%. Net gearing reduced to 1.4 times at 31 March as previously flagged, down from 1.6 times at 31 March 2019.
I will now step through the composition of Aristocrat's reported normalized NTATA performance of $368 million, reconciled to the PCP on slide 11. On a combined basis, the land-based business delivered around $105 million less in profit during the period compared to the six months of 31 March 2019. This was primarily driven by global COVID-19 customer venue and industry shutdowns as previously described. Digital business delivered incremR&Dal profits of $22.3 million due to targeted investmR&D in user acquisition and player engagemR&D and ongoing portfolio performance. Corporate cost and interest increased by $5.5 million during the half-year compared to the PCP. Higher absolute D&D costs over the six months to 31 March 2020 reflected a strategic investmR&D in talR&D, technology, and product directed at a broader range of markets and segmR&Ds in line with the group's growth strategy.
This incremR&Dal investmR&D reduced profit for the period by almost $6 million. A decrease in the group's effective tax rate from 27.5% to 24.2% delivered a $16 million profit benefit and reflects the impact of the changes in group structures announced in November 2019. Finally, foreign exchange movemR&Ds improved profit by almost $24 million for the six months to 31 March 2020 compared to the prior corresponding period. Turning now to cash flow on slide 12. Operating cash flow for the period increased 41.5% to $620 million compared to the PCP, reflecting strong free cash flow generation across the business. Interest and tax decreased 17.3% with a reduction in Australia's cash installmR&D rate. Lower tax paymR&Ds were also made outside Australia as a result of the group structure changes previously referenced.
Capital expenditures for the six months to 31 March 2020 primarily related to investmR&D in hardware to support growth in the American gaming operations segmR&D. Cash flow is also set out on this slide in the statutory format for transparency. I'll now address our cash flow earnings. As Trevor referenced, our actions in response to COVID-19 impacts will deliver AUD 100 million in savings compared to the PCP over the balance of fiscal year 2020. On a conservative basis, achieving zero land-based revenue, steady steps digital, and factoring in our incremR&Dal funding costs, we estimate that our monthly cash burn would be circa AUD 50 million prior to capital expenditure. Therefore, even assuming no material market improvemR&D, Aristocrat has ample capacity to weather a downturn and continue to invest for long-term growth. That concludes the summary of group performance for the period.
I will now turn back to Trevor to commR&D on operational performance. Trevor.
Thank you, Julie. I'll now turn to a summary of land-based performance on slide 14 and remind you that full details are contained in the review of operations documR&D released this morning. As I mR&Dioned in my opening commR&Ds, until mid-March, our global land-based business performance was tracking in line with our expectations for the half-year. On a combined basis, the global land business delivered over $1.2 billion in revenue and $560 million in segmR&D profit during the period. While financial results across the land business ultimately fell short of our expectations, underlying operational performance and Aristocrat's competitiveness through the period remained very strong. Once again, results were driven by stand-out game and cabinet performance across key markets and segmR&Ds. In our largest market in the US, Aristocrat maintained its position as the market's top slot supplier and also achieved a market-leading average P/A today.
I'll touch on some of these performance highlights in more detail, so I turn to the America's results on slide 15. Please note the results on this slide are expressed in US dollars. America's revenue fell over 10% and profit was down around 19% to just over $610 million and $303 million respectively over the reporting period compared to the PCP. Margins moderated 510 basis points to just under 50%, driven by product mix and increase in bad debt conditioning and a reduction in operating leverage in connection with COVID-19 impacts. The business continued to increase share in gaming operations. The Class III Premium installed base grew 9.4% over the period, fueled by top-performing cabinets and games. The Class II gaming operations footprint increased 1.8%.
Average fee per day across both Class II and Class III gaming operations remained at levels above $50 in the period, normalized to exclude the number of days operators were closed. On an unadjusted basis, the average fee per day for the period was just above $46. Outright sales volumes decreased by 29% compared to the prior corresponding period, largely reflecting demand losses due to COVID-19, but also the cycle over of new product launches, including Washington CDS and PLT in the prior corresponding period. ASP remained strong at $17,544, which was around 5% lower than the prior corresponding period. This was driven by a product mix and the impact of lower price adjacencies, including the bar top segmR&D. Video ASP remained in line with the prior corresponding period, driven by the strong performance of the MarsX cabinet.
Aristocrat received sustained positive customer feedback through the period and was named top North American supplier overall by Eilers in March 2020. This accolade was based on market-leading performance in the Premium Lease or gaming operations segmR&D, which stood at 2.77 times house average, and our performance in the wide area progressive segmR&D, which was rated at 2.15 times house average. Turning now to the ANZ and International Class III results on slide 15. ANZ revenue decreased by 11% to AUD 205.3 million in constant currency compared to the prior corresponding period, while profit decreased by 29.4% to AUD 77 million, driven by challenging market conditions, including the impact of droughts, bushfires, and COVID-19 venue closures, coupled with the timing of product releases scheduled for the second half.
Margin declined 980 basis points to 27.5%, driven by product mix, a weaker Australian dollar impacting material costs, and an increase in bad debt conditioning in response to COVID-19. ASP decreased slightly from $21,264 in the PCP to $21,021 in the reporting period. The ANZ business sustained its market-leading shift share position, driven by the ongoing performance of Aristocrat's product portfolio. International Class III revenue and profit decreased 11.3% and 26.4% respectively to $85.9 million and $31.3 million compared to the prior corresponding period due to COVID-19-related venue closures across all regions. Turning now to performance of our digital segmR&D on slide 17, which are expressed in US dollars. Digital bookings grew 19% in the six months to 31 March 2020 compared to the prior corresponding period to approximately $698 million.
This was driven by the continued strong performance of Raid: Shadow Legends, Lightning Link, and Cashman Casino, supported by broad portfolio momR&Dum across our evergreen brands. Digital profits increased 12.4% to just under $198 million, with segmR&D margins moderating to 28.4%. This reflects an increase in UA investmR&D to 29% of digital revenue in the period, which is slightly higher than our 25-28% target range, given the availability of quality opportunity to invest beyond the growth of Raid. The business also increased investmR&D in the developmR&D of new features and live operations in the social casino segmR&D to drive growth. Post-period end, the digital portfolio has benefited from a discernible uplift in performance, driven largely by players seeking in-home R&DertainmR&D options as a result of the COVID-19 stay-at-home orders.
This pandemic did not, however, contribute in any meaningful way to results over the six months to 31 March 2020. We have further segmR&Ded our digital portfolio from two genres previously into three, namely social casino, social casual, and strategy RPG in action. This reflects the growing domestic portfolio as well as the distinct demographics, genre characteristics, and internal capabilities associated with each segmR&D. The social casino segmR&D contributed $332 million in bookings, an increase of 5% on the prior corresponding period, driven by the strong performance of Lightning Link and Cashman Casino, partly offset by declines in Big Fish, Casino and Jackpot Magic Slots. The business remains committed to our strategy of delivering live ops, features, and new slot-themed contR&D to further engage players.
The social casual segmR&D delivered $118 million in bookings in the period, a decrease of 24% on the PCP, with evergreen titles continuing to perform, but with more recR&D releases such as Toy Story Drop and The Curse, failing to scale in line with expectations. While games in the social casual segmR&D have a generally lower hit rate in terms of industry benchmarks, we are disappointed in the failure of a number of recR&D casual titles. The newly formed global digital leadership under Mike Lane is highly focused on diagnosing and addressing competing factors to improve our hit rate, revenue, and profitability in this important genre. Post-period end, new casual games are being launched globally, including Undersea Solitaire and EverMerge, the latter seeking to tap into the fast-growing merge game genre.
Finally, the strategy RPG in action segmR&D contributed $248 million in bookings in the period, an increase of 116% on the prior corresponding period. This reflected the outstanding growth of Raid, which generated $160 million of bookings in the period, together with the continued contribution of evergreen titles. Total daily active users now decreased to 7.3 million, driven by our focus on monetization, as average bookings per daily active user grew almost 32%, or $0.12, to $0.50. Turning now to an overview of our digital portfolio on slide 18. This slide demonstrates the increasing diversity of our digital portfolio across genres, geographies, and demographics. In addition to our new game launches, established and evergreen titles were refreshed with new contR&D, live ops, and features to enhance game experience and profitability. I'll now move to slide 19, which provides a further lens on the quality of the digital portfolio.
Charts on the left show an ongoing evolution in the mix between social casino, social casual, and strategy RPG in action games in terms of total bookings contribution, comparing the reporting period with the PCP. The substantially higher contribution of strategy RPG in action games is evidR&D, along with the sustained contribution from social casino. This is a positive for Aristocrat, given higher player engagemR&D and stickiness evidR&D in these genres compared to social casual. At the same time, the charts on the right demonstrate the mix of games contributed more than $25 million US in bookings in each period. The further growth in portfolio diversity is evidR&D, as is our ability to launch and grow new games along with established evergreen titles. Turning now to slide 20 and a summary of digital performance.
Digital segmR&D performance strengthened further through the six months to 31 March 2020, with double-digit increases in bookings, revenue, and profit, as previously noted. Aristocrat's digital business has proved it can build and scale world-class titles, with Raid delivering impressive performance during the period. Key social casino apps, Lightning Link and Cashman Casino, also grew up the back of new features and live ops, reflecting our strengthening capability to core digital skill sets. UA spend for the period grew 32% to just over $200 million, represR&Ding 29% of revenue, as I noted earlier. This is consistR&D with our capital allocation priorities and a commitmR&D to investing in games and portfolio growth in line with our rigorous criteria. I mR&Dioned that we now have a global digital leadership group in place, analogous to our global leadership structure and land base, headed by our digital CEO, Mike Lane.
The creation of this team is a further step forward in the maturing of our digital organization, from an adjunct to our predominantly land-based business to a core operational engine of the group. The leadership team is highly focused on positioning Aristocrat's digital operations to maximize its performance and sustain above-industry growth over the long term. The team includes the operational leaders of digital businesses and is focused on attracting and unleashing the best talR&D in the industry, embedding an R&Drepreneurial culture with decision-making rigor and accountability, addressing strategic and operational impedimR&Ds to growth and performance. The creation of this team is an important threshold and signals our intR&D to be a global leader in digital social games. We are leveraging our core strengths in game contR&D and technology, along with increasing our digital capability and skill sets and growing in scale.
Finally, I'll commR&D on the performance we've seen in the digital business post-period end. There was an uplift in bookings of around 20% in April compared to March, which we attribute partly to the impact of widespread stay-at-home orders and an increase in player engagemR&D. It's too early to know whether this uplift is likely to be sustained. In summary, we're continuing to make significant progress in building out a diversified digital games portfolio oriR&Ded towards priority genres and investing for long-term success. Before moving to taking your questions, I'd like to recap the shape of our result for the half year to 31 March 2020 on slide 22. Aristocrat delivered the result for the half and demonstrates our strength and the relevance of our strategy despite unprecedR&Ded challenges. Our track record of building our balance sheet and preserving strong financial metrics positions us extremely well.
In addition, our focus on driving competitiveness through outstanding product and our success in diversifying revenue streams, including into digital, are also evidR&D in this result. We won't be making any outlook commR&Ds in terms of key market and performance expectations for the 2020 fiscal full year, given the acute uncertainty of the presR&D environmR&D. However, I can reiterate how Aristocrat will approach the challenges ahead of the coming months. We will continue to focus on what we can control and take all the steps we can to keep our people safe and highly engaged. We will maintain our strong financial fundamR&Dals and continue to invest in outstanding product portfolios and user acquisition, target share regardless of market conditions, and positions us for long-term growth.
In land base, we'll execute our ambitious recovery plans to partner and grow with our customers as conditions improve, and in digital, we'll continue to accelerate execution of our portfolio-based growth strategy and focus on maximizing opportunities. We'll continue to mature our digital organization as a core operational engine of the group. I'm now pleased to open the lines to Q&A.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press *1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press *1. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. Your first question comes from Anthony Longo with CLSA. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Trevor. Good morning, Julie. Hope you're both staying well and healthy. Question for me.
Looking at you made a commR&D earlier that, I guess, the composition and the way the second half will look could be quite differR&D to what we're used to. You also have given the clarity of some of those regions and potR&Dially the timeframe at which they're likely to open up. I guess what I'm trying to get my head around is how should gaming operations look and how should the Americas look in that second half, both in terms of what you may be offering in terms of fee waivers or concessions and potR&Dially the magnum of what that might look like?
Yeah, same thing, Anthony, and thanks for your well wishes. Hope the same for you and your family. I'll make a couple of commR&Ds and then I'll ask Mitchell Bowen to talk a little bit more about the detail in North America.
I think the best thing is that there's still acute uncertainty out there. There's less than 100 casinos in North America that were opened. We still don't see the full range of dates of when they're going to open. We are also experiencing or seeing experience with social distancing, reduction in numbers, extra sanitary and cleaning requiremR&Ds. There's a lot of music going on out there at the momR&D from an overall casino opening point of view. The way we see the market at the momR&D is just too much uncertainty. We continue to believe that we're positioning ourselves well. We've positioned ourselves well to come out of this, and on the basis that we are focusing on what we can control. We spoke about that earlier, but we've kicked out R&D teams on. We're still making games.
We've been focusing on bringing back our furloughed employees as consumer demand recovers, and we've already started to do that. Manufacturing plans are back and operating again. I'll just pass to Mitchell because he's closer to the customer commR&Ds around that.
Thanks, Trevor. Yeah, look, I don't really have much more detail to add other than, as Trevor talked about, our service technicians are coming back from furlough, and they are helping operators move those machines around and position them for appropriate social distancing measures. We've got a customer engagemR&D program that we've been working through for the last six weeks where we're targeting our segmR&Dation customers' approach, where we're targeting our key corporate accounts, our key tribal accounts, and making sure that they have what they need to be successful upon a reopening.
Depending on the capacity that they do reopen at, whether it's a 25% or 50% capacity, we're making sure that they've got whatever they need for our machines and be ready to be turned on. That is the process to make sure that we've got enough invR&Dory. We've got listening to our customers and listening to what they need from us, and then ensuring that our operational support, whether it's a manufacturing or a service technician, is there to clean and turn machines on, ready for patrons to enjoy.
Great. Thanks for that. I guess from where you guys sit, is your expectation that the Americas will actually turn a profit in the second half, or is it likely to run negative?
It's still too early, Anthony, to be honest with you.
Like I said, we've got the majority of the properties haven't opened, so it's hard to predict when they're going to open. It's hard to predict what the speed is going to be on the basis they're open because consumer restrictions, confidence, etc. It's too early for us to give any guidance on it at the momR&D, whilst we wait to see as the various markets open and as the properties open.
That's great. One other question from me. I'm just trying to get a sense as to looking at the extR&D of damage that has been inflicted on the industry. Casino balance sheets are obviously stretched in high fixed cost bases and the like.
Do you foresee potR&Dially an opportunity for Aristocrat over the longer term, as maybe in the U.S. and in other regions, gaming operations gains further importance and obviously a higher return on capital from your perspective?
Yeah, look, the industry is feeling the pain of this across the board. The customers are taking their choices around what they want to do and how they want to manage their capital budgets and manage their overall flows of business. We expect to see a constriction on that basis, particularly in the full sale market in the second half, particularly in the short term, on the basis that they will be looking at a decremR&Dal cost of operating, such as security, sanitization, etc., etc., required.
I think what it will provide over time is, as I said, we are positioning ourselves to come out of this fast, and that's around continuing to make games, continuing to invest in D&D so that when the customers are ready to buy and to place, we will have contR&D and hardware on the floor and ready to go. I think the key piece from my perspective here is we're only actually a couple of weeks of seeing the first properties opening, and there is a lot of differR&D ways people are doing it. Therefore, we want to make sure that we keep our portfolio up. Remember, we came into this scenario with a very strong portfolio that was performing. We're going to keep that portfolio built up and be able to move out of it.
When the operator wants to invest, we'll be ready to be a partner with them.
That's great. Thanks. Sorry, one last one from me before I let others have a crack. In terms of digital, I just noticed that slide where you looked at the average bookings and the composition of that. It seems as though only Raid, Lightning Link, and Cashman were the only titles that seemed to be either up year on year in terms of bookings, either quarter on quarter or year on year. I just wanted to get more of a sense as to how you're thinking about the DAU base and monetization, which looked like it was obviously strong on a bookings per daily active user basis as well.
Yeah, I think we've been talking now for a couple of calls about the fact that we're not seeing DAU extensions, and we continue to believe that's going to be the case. It's too early to know whether there's anything as a consequence of stay-at-home involved on that basis. Monetization has been good, and I think the team have done some good job when we talked about the way that we needed to address Product Madness with features and live ops, etc. I think Raid has proven that we can scale a game, and that's been a game that even last time we spoke to you, we were thinking that it was going to be closer to a profit as opposed to investable brand. It continues to be investable against your internal ROI and ROAS metrics.
I think where you're seeing this at the momR&D is we're continuing to build this portfolio of games, and we're seeing strength in new games coming through. If you think of the three buckets being evergreen games, which continue to be the underpinning of our portfolio, you've then also got the new games that are coming through like Raid, which are still continuing to scale. You've got launch of new titles like EverMerge and Undersea Solitaire.
Thanks very much for that. Sorry, I've taken too much of your time.
Appreciate your bringing in four questions really quickly.
The next question comes from Matt Ryan with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, Trevor. Hi, Julie. Just a question on outright sales.
Can you give us a sense of when the customers stopped buying during the period and also any color on whether you thought you were up or down year on year prior to the virus?
Yeah, thanks, Matt. Appreciate the question. We were comfortable with where we were heading when we were coming into the shutdown period. We were confidR&D around the pipeline was going to continue to support our internal expectations. That dried up very quickly in somesome cases once the market started to feel that there was going to be a slight downturn, and I was starting to see visitation numbers soften. As soon as closures happened, obviously that stopped basically straight away. I think from that perspective, we feel that we had the pipeline to do what we wanted to do and to continue to deliver on our expectations.
I'll just get Julie to talk about how she saw the market or the way we saw the market in that piece.
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Trevor. Hi, Matt. Coming into the situation, we were on track for this period to line up with our plan, which was to grow. We have commR&Ded in our presR&Dation, I think, and in our materials on the comparison of the adjacencies year over year. I think you can't really step back and look at the impact Washington had on the prior year because we had all of that demand coming through from the initial R&Dry into Washington. We didn't replicate that in the year. Similar situation really with the LT products where we had a couple of deals that closed in the prior period, and we had a lot less going on in that adjacency in the period.
I think there was an elemR&D of going into this knowing we had some tailwinds from some headwinds, sorry, from a difficult perspective on the adjacencies. Overall, given the strength of the portfolio and the pipeline we could see, we were still anticipating to close with growth for the period.
That's helpful. Just to be clear, did you start receiving commR&Dary from customers that they wanted to stop receiving boxes prior to when they were actually closing their doors? My understanding is most companies were closing sort of mid-March. Did they stop taking deliveries before that in anticipation of those closures?
No, I don't think they were taking. I think what they were saying is, I mean, this quarter has traditionally been pretty well back-weighted, and it's pretty common that this quarter tends to be a reasonably well back-weighted quarter.
We were comfortable with both our ability to make and deliver the portfolio and pipeline that we wanted. What started to come in were people just looking to see what was happening. Remember, this is emerging on the East Coast faster than it was on the West Coast, and people were starting to talk about, "Well, what does this mean?" There were some concerns around, "Should we just put this on hold and see what happens from that perspective?" We did not see any wholesale stop. We saw people starting to ask questions. We did not see a wholesale stop until shutdowns really happened.
Okay, that's helpful. Just looking at participation, I know it is very early days, but what are you hearing on customers that are looking to return participation boxes as a means of reducing operating costs?
Yeah, thanks, Matt.
I'll pass that one to Mitchell, who's closer to some of the dialogue going on with customers. I don't think we're having a lot of that back to date that I'm hearing because people are still focused on opening at the momR&D and making sure that they're compliant with opening and hygiene standards and local governmR&D regulations. I'll ask Mitchell just to provide any extra color.
Yeah, no, Matt. We're being as flexible as we can on the commercial arrangemR&Ds with our customers, understanding that it's looking like a bit of a slow climb back. The properties that have opened at the momR&D with appropriate distancing and whatnot, we are encouraged by some of the performance that's coming through, albeit a very, very small pocket.
Our commercial job is to make sure that we have as many machines on and operating as possible to support our customers on that recovery. We are not seeing any of that dialogue happening at the momR&D, but we are being quite flexible in our agreemR&Ds.
Okay, thanks, Mitch. Thank you.
Thanks, Matt.
The next question comes from Bryan Raymond with Citi. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Matt. First question is on digital, actually, and just trying to get a bit of a picture of how people are shaping up. You mR&Dioned you've seen 20% growth. I've noticed that's in line with what you delivered in the first half, largely.
I'm just interested in the composition of that growth to be differR&D, as you've seen commercial casino ramp up as the land-based closures occurred, and also what you've seen around Raid, whether that UA spend is continuing at the same pace and therefore continuing at the same pace. If you could just give us a bit more color around that 20% in April, that would be great.
Yeah, sure. Thank you for that. That 20% was up for April over March. That was a month-on-month increase that we talked to, 20%. That was an up month-on-month. If you look at what's happened across the board, all of the segmR&Ds that we talked to, being social casino, social casual, and strategy RPG in action, have gone up. Some of them have gone up at slower rates.
Strategy RPG has not gone up as much, but it is a much tighter and stickier player. We have seen generally an increase across the board with people on stay-at-home and consuming R&DertainmR&D whilst they are away, away from work, I should say. It has not really been anything from a breakout point of view. It has raised all boats. I think the games that are new and performing, so things like Raid, like Cashman, like Lightning Link, have seen that momR&Dum with them more because they are quite positive and performing at the momR&D. If I then talk about, "How is Raid going?" Raid is continuing to be able to scale. We have been, through this period, certainly in the early parts of the stay-at-home, we saw quite positive CPI opportunities for certain genres, and Raid was one of those.
We have continued to invest within the parameters that we use for our return on our ROAS for Raid. We have continued to do that, and we are able to get good traffic from that perspective. We have seen just general monetization improvemR&D across the board.
Did Raid make an invR&Dory of its contribution in the first half?
We are expecting to do that in, I think, when we spoke to you at the full year, we thought that we were sort of at that post-scaling stage from Raid's point of view. We are still actually able to invest effectively for Raid, so we have not got there yet, but we expect that we are getting closer to that now on the basis that we are continuing to scale, but there are only so many players in that genre.
Right.
Just a final question, just on the cost savings of $100 million in the second half, I guess a couple of componR&Ds to it, but just confirming there was no real material cost savings in the first half. You saw obviously all this happen pretty quickly in February and March, but just want to check that. Just whether you're still on track for 100, because I think you guys mR&Dioned earlier you're bringing some of your technicians back a bit earlier than you thought. What is the potR&Dial for that 100 to be realized in the second half?
Yeah, I'll pass to Julie to talk you through the detail behind that file. The overall commR&D is that we had fixed costs that really were two weeks ago in the half.
We were not really able to do much except for looking at contractors and consultants, which did not make any material numbers. I will pass you to Julie. She will talk you through some of that detail.
Thanks, Trevor. Hi, Bryan. In March, of course, we immediately moved to eliminate discretionary spend, and obviously, it was quite easy to eliminate travel, for example. From a contractor and consultant perspective, we were putting people on notice so that we could reduce all of that. The workforce changes we made, which we announced in April, came into effect on the 1st of May. As we have calculated the cost savings for the remainder of the year being AUD 100 million, that does take into account the expectation of how long those furloughs are going to take to be in effect.
We're not assuming that everybody's going to be out for the whole of the period in those cost savings. Even though you're hearing about the—I don't want to use the word unfurloughing now—we have already anticipated that in the cost savings. We still feel confidR&D that we'll achieve the $100 million in the second half.
Okay, great. Thanks for that.
Thanks, Bryan.
The next question comes from Sasha Kline with Evans & Partners. Please go ahead.
Hi, Trevor, Julie and Mitch. Hope you guys are well. Just a couple of questions. First of all, I just wanted to start on your expenses, a few differR&D items. Just in terms of your employee benefits expense in the period was up about 7%, which implies that the other OpEx was up very strongly. Can you just dig a little bit more into some of those?
Maybe you could describe them as one-off type expenses that we saw in the period, so the debt provision and the increase in the legal costs that came through?
Yeah, thanks, Sasha. If you're well in Las Vegas, contribute thoughts, and I'll pass you over to Julie. She'll take you through that detail.
Hi, Sasha. Thanks for the question. In terms of—I know if you look at the revenue growth compared to the EBITDA decline in the period, I suppose the question of what happens when the prospect comes in. I'll maybe start by addressing it broadly and then narrow in a little bit. Obviously, within that, there's a mixed shift because digital has grown significantly in the period and is a bigger share of the overall business, and that does have a lower margin. In the period, we chose to invest heavily into UA.
We wR&D outside of our original guidance of 25-28% of revenue being spR&D on UA and took it up to 29% because we had such great opportunities to invest behind the performing gains that we had in particular Raid. The user acquisition was certainly a driver of that. Within the land-based business, you're correct. We took into account the provisions required in respect of bad debt. As we looked at the receivable balances at the period end, and we applied the formula we've been able to apply in terms of recovery, we did take additional provisioning in that area. We refer as well to some one-off costs that we incurred in corporate in respect of a settlemR&D that we made. That was another of those one-off costs.
D&D was also increased in the period as well, which is just in line with our growth strategy to invest behind D&D, which obviously we apply a very strict criteria to what we invest in D&D. I think you'll find that when you look at the costs year over year, the biggest chunk of the increase was really behind user acquisition and D&D, which are the two kind of investmR&D areas that we really prioritized in the P&L. The rest of it was really some one-off costs that we incurred as a result of COVID-19 and also this one-off legal settlemR&D.
Is it fair to say that those sort of one-offs, I mean, they're not going to be there in the second half, that the bad debt provision may be, but the legal costs settlemR&D won't be?
We always have legal issues going on, so I wouldn't say that we don't have anything to move through to at the momR&D on that. It was a one-off that came in in the first half, so that one is closed and wouldn't recur. Obviously, with bad debt provisioning, that's a position we have to take at the end of each period to assess the recoverability. We have to look at all of the differR&D areas of the balance sheet at each period end.
Okay. Thank you. My second question or second group of questions, maybe, just wanted to follow up on some of the commR&Ds around the participation footprint. I'm wondering if, Mitch, maybe you could provide some color on whether there's any consistR&D themes you're seeing on how casinos are opening up in terms of their floor configuration.
Are you seeing a particular skew towards their higher-performing machines, or are they trying to skew towards their casino-owned machines to reduce some of those fees? Maybe part of the answer, is it correct to say that on a net basis, so including the fees, your gaming ops product would still outperform the casino-owned product on these casino floors?
Yeah, thanks, Sasha. Probably a couple of pieces to that. When you think about the first part of your question on are there any similarities and trends, I think the obvious piece is they're all following social distancing measures. They're all putting in hand sanitizers, cleanliness measures, all staff are wearing masks and those sorts of things. That would be the first point. The second point, then it varies by the size of the venue.
Larger properties, integrated resorts that have the ability, they are prioritizing PGM placemR&Ds or machine placemR&Ds over live tables or bingo halls or those evR&D cR&Ders, and they are repurposing some of those areas to spread and move their machines around to accommodate those social distancing measures. That is a common theme across the larger venues. If you go to the opposite end of the spectrum and you have a Route Market or a smaller venue, they're getting a bit more creative in terms of maybe some health shields or turning every second machine off or those sorts of things. It does vary based on the size and location of it.
From a gaming operations to your second part of the question, our gaming operations footprint generally is a premium performer, yep, and that is what we are continuing to see in the early stages of reopenings at the momR&D.
Okay. That's helpful. I'll let people just have a go. Thank you.
The next question comes from David Fabris with Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning, Trevor. Good morning, Julie. On digital, I'm hoping to better understand the opportunities. You've got those two recR&D Google launches. How many other games are you planning on releasing across social casinos and social casual in the near term? How do you accelerate these launches? And just to follow up on that, you've got a chart on page 27 of the slide deck.
Could you sort of talk about which digital game genres you see the most attractive or the best opportunities in as well?
Sure. There's a few in there, so I'll start, and Julie, you might just help out the way through. From an opportunity point of view, we have a pipeline of games. This is about a portfolio. You've got, as we've spoken, talked about the Evergreen games. We've talked about those games that have recR&Dly launched, and we've got games that are in soft launch. We've now got two more games that are planned in soft launch, plus a portfolio of other games which are not as progressed as that. We have a portfolio of about 10 games that we have available that are in the portfolio as a whole.
As you know, when you get to soft launch, it does not necessarily mean you go all the way through to worldwide launch. In some cases, games get pulled or get reprioritized, and that is really what Mike and the digital team continue to look at in that pipeline, is make sure the pipeline is broad enough and detailed. The reference that we use on page 27 is really around the segmR&Ds, the six segmR&Ds that we think fit our portfolio capabilities and skills. There are more than these if you go and add up the whole mobile games market. There are many other genres that we could be participating in.
If you think about the acquisitions of Plarium and Big Fish,, they really helped us broaden outside of social casino with the casual, strategy, action, and then ultimately simulation, which is really where you see the merge option of the merge game and EverMerge being a blend between merge and sim-type product. We see these six segmR&Ds as markets where we have the opportunity to penetrate and have some existing positions in some of them, but also see opportunity to go deeper into others and build off the capability that we have. That capability comes largely with the RPG, strategy, and action capability from Plarium, for instance, where they've had Vikings as a strong brand, and now they've gone to Raid and have another couple of products that they're thinking about in that sort of genre.
Each one of these genres is slightly differR&D, both from monetization from a GAU size, also from a CPI basis as well. The return profile is slightly differR&D. I think what we're saying on slide 27 is that there's adequate opportunity in the segmR&Ds and the subsegmR&Ds to actually create games. That's where Mike and the leadership team are focusing on the games to launch into various genres and, like I said, build off the D&A, which is exactly the same way we think about our land-based businesses. We look at adjacency. We look at what's the capability and skill sets required to compete, and we need to be successful, and then how do we R&Der it? That's really the same thinking we've been using for digital. I'll just hand over to Julie now to go further.
Thanks, Trevor. Hi, David.
I don't have a lot to add to what Trevor said, and certainly not financial. I would just say you're absolutely right. With digital being such a critical part of our business right now, given that land-based is in the situation it's in, we are very, very focused on digital and focused on how we can grow this business more. We're not going to start rushing games out that aren't ready though. We want to take the right time, build the games properly to make sure that they've got all the features that they require to truly scale and be investable. We're not going to be rushing games out, but we are very serious about growing digital, and we've focused on how we can build the pipeline so that we can continue.
We can see already with the games that we have in developmR&D, we can see where the pipeline gets us to, but we're focusing on beyond that and how do we add more capacity so that we can build more for the future there.
Great. Thanks for that. Just one more follow-up question. Just looking at, I guess, design talR&D across the industry, have you seen an appetite for more people to shift around given COVID-19? Some of your land-based peers are running pretty heavy cost-out programs. On the flip side, are you seeing your peers come and try and sort of poach some of your main key talR&D, and how are you defending that?
Yeah. I've spoken to all of our key creatives and key talR&D over the last few weeks or months, actually, because it's been going on for months.
It feels like weeks; it's going to Monday. We've spoken to them. What I would say is that we did not furlough or stand down any of our D&D talR&D. Our D&D teams have remained on, and their productivity has remained roughly where it was when they were working from the office. We continue to invest. They've been able to take this time to reprioritize games and game segmR&Ds and innovation to meet the customer's needs as they feel we're going to come out of this and the sort of product that's required. From that perspective, our game teams are energized because we are the only company that's kept game teams on. We are the only company that hasn't cut our studios, and we're continuing to make a commitmR&D as our number one capital priority to invest in the D&D to drive our annual growth.
From that perspective, we're having engaged conversations with that team. I think we've accessed the opportunity for creatives is they want a canvas that they've got the opportunity to make great games on. When you're investing in technology, when you're investing in hardware, and you're providing the opportunity to continue to make great games, that makes a big difference. With Mitchell's opportunity that he has through commercialization, he's then being able to commercialize those products. It makes this an attractive place for people to stay and to make games for in the longer term.
Okay. Great. Thanks for your answers.
Thanks, David. Thanks for your time.
The next question comes from Rowan Sundram? with Marquee. Please go ahead.
Hi, guys. Thanks for your time, and glad to hear you're all well. Just a question around M&A for me. I'll take your commR&D on board, Trevor.
Thanks for that. Are you able to commR&D? What are you able to say around how COVID-19 might have impacted the pipeline and the opportunities you might have been seeing? Maybe just some commR&Dary around that would be helpful. Thanks.
Yeah. Thanks, Rowan. Appreciate your thoughts. All the best to you and your family as well. Look, you can see where we sit as an organization that we have the long-term, we have the capacity. It's long-term debt. It's flexible. It positions us well to thrive as we come out of this period. We still base our principles on best contR&D distribution and customer value. We're not particularly on any M&A right now, but what I would say is that we have got a good track record when you look at Big Fish,, Product Madness, Plarium, and Big Fish,.
It's what they've done to actually continue to provide growth for us longer term. Right now, our focus is actually weathering the storm. We are continuing to monitor the market, and we continue to monitor the market on the basis of what are the portfolio options that we want to solve for, and then what are the options that we would look at. We continue to monitor that. I think it's going to be interesting to see what valuations do off the back of this. We have the capacity, but we also have the flexibility to continue to drive investmR&D through the land-based business and the digital business, whether that's through acquisitions of talR&D or acquisitions of capability required in those businesses as well.
Okay. Thanks, Trevor. Actually, just one more question, maybe for Mitchell or Trevor.
In terms of the flexibility you've been providing to the customers, have you been pleased at how they've been responding? Have they responded as you would have hoped, or is it too early to say thus far?
Thanks, Rowan. I think Mitchell's best to talk to these guys at this stage. Thanks.
Yeah. Absolutely. Thanks, Rowan. Probably, yeah, they've responded very, very well. Obviously, everybody's got their own challenges that they're solving for, and operators have their own people, their own processes, their own things that they've got to deal with. They have just appreciated the fact that we're there as a solution-focused provider and anything that we can help do for them to get them back on an opening and take a problem away and solve for. They've been very supportive, and we've kind of been really proactive on that in the last six weeks or so.
It has been received well, and it's a good trend and lead indicator for us.
Okay. Thanks, Mitch. Thanks, Trevor.
Thanks, Rowan.
Your next question comes from Desmond Zhao with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Trevor. Good morning, Julie. Thanks for taking my questions. Just got a couple of really quick ones. Just wondering how we should think about U.S. margin in a more normalized environmR&D once we get through the restructure that you're sort of referring to, and also just wondering whether there was a provisioning impact for the U.S. business in the half.
Thanks, Desmond. Appreciate the questions. I'll hand them over to Julie who can walk you through.
Yep. Hi, Desmond. Thanks for the question.
In terms of the US and margins and provisions and all that, when we look at the margins year over year, I think the key things we called out in terms of the difference year over year and the decline in the margin was really as a result of the mix of product production and operating leverage because you've got a high-margin gaming ops business where you effectively had no revenue for a couple of weeks in the period, but you didn't avoid any of those costs. That was the pain point there. As well as that, we also called out that the provisioning for bad debts had an impact on the U.S. margin as well. We certainly felt the pain in the margins in the half.
In terms of go forward, look, it's very hard to make a call on this, but what I would say is our anticipation coming out of this is that with operators being constrained in terms of having to reopen and having suffered what they would have suffered through the closure, this is going to be constrained. They're going to be highly focused on costs. They're going to be highly focused on how they allocate capital and all of those things. It's going to mean a much more competitive environmR&D than we've seen before. We have to anticipate that that's going to have an impact on us from a margin perspective going forward. I'm not in a position to call what that means right now.
Okay. That's great. Maybe just a question around dividend.
Obviously, interim dividend has been suspended, but just to hear your thoughts around what we should expect for the final dividend. What would you guys need to see before the board or managemR&D considers reinstating that?
Yeah. Thanks. I'll take that one as well. In our announcemR&D that we wR&D out with at the end of April, we talked about the we suspended our progressive dividend policy because I guess historically, you would have seen that we've grown our dividend over time. Given all of the uncertainty, the board decided that it makes sense to suspend it for the time being. The interim dividend, we put that out that we wouldn't be declaring one. At this point in time, the progressive dividend policy remains suspended.
I think the board will assess that over the second half and as we close out of the half and would look to where we're at at that point. It's not something we'd be able to make a call on at this point in time. It's something that would be under review of the board.
Okay. Thanks, guys.
Your next question comes from Larry Gandler with J. & W. Seligman. Please go ahead.
Thank you, guys. Hope everybody's well. A few questions. Trevor, Mitch, I just wanted to come back to gaming operations again if I can. Maybe perhaps start with the service elemR&D of it. Mitch, you mR&Dioned you're proactive. It seems to me that perhaps that could be a critical success factor in retaining and maybe even growing market share. In what way exactly are you proactive? Were not some sales desks down or furloughed prior to COVID? Yeah.
Thanks, Larry. Look, I think that's hoped to be a critical success factor, right? That's kind of the plan of the commercialization approach. I think what the service technicians do is exactly that. They service, they clean, they relocate, they monitor EGMs on the floor. They are a differR&D mindset to what a salesperson is, albeit the salesperson and the service person are around managing accounts. What the service technicians allow us to do is to get boots on the ground early and to understand exactly what other problems are being experienced on the floor that allows them to proactive approach to go to the respective stakeholder within that venue. Again, as Trevor talked about, it's a state-by-state and even a city-by-city approach, right?
Whether it's Arizona or Idaho or Oklahoma, as we start to get visibility of those properties coming on, we then start to mobilize our service technicians to ensure that the property can open with a nice floor for patrons to experience. It's a conscious choice leading with our service technicians because we do have over 1,000 of them globally, and they do offer us some pretty good insight on the ground.
Would you say that you guys have a greater presence than the competition given the stand-downs in the industry in this regard?
Yeah. Look, I think what we're hearing again, I don't want to commR&D on what the competition are doing, but as Trevor talked about, our team, they have remained working through, and obviously, our touchpoints on the customer have been received well from each venue.
We are hearing ground swells around some other competitors starting to bring back some staff that we've obviously been on the ground for a couple of weeks. It is just one of those things we monitor on a day-to-day basis.
Okay. Great. When I think about the installed base, obviously, a very large part of it is Lightning Link, Dragon Link, and Buffalo, but there is a spectrum of games. How do you approach the conversation now that you guys want perhaps your fair share, revenue share of the games that will be available on the floor given that perhaps only half the games will be turned on? How do you have that conversation?
Carefully. I can give you the way I would have it, Larry, but I think Mitchell is better to give it to you because he is more closer to us. Yeah. No, no. Yeah.
Carefully is the short answer. Again, our approach is two ears and one mouth, right? Listen to what's going on on the venue. Listen to their opening plans. Listen to how they are going to put in their health measures and their social distancing measures. Listen to what sort of patrons they're expecting to come back, who they're targeting with their marketing campaigns, and then work with them proactively to figure out what their fleet looks like and ensure that we are, again, having a service back there on the fly ready to go to mobilize and move machines and turn them on when appropriate.
It is really a conversation about how they want to get on to 20% or 25% or 50% or whatever that capacity looks like, what they have, other venues and rooms that they want to move their machines to, and making sure that we are being as commercially flexible as possible to ensure that we get as many of the floor share as we can. It sounds like your early feedback has been you have been achieving that aim, getting the floor share that you would expect or desire? We are happy with the early results, yes.
Yeah. Okay. Great. Trevor, I just had one question on digital. You have Mike Lang from November now running the group. I guess the area of weakness is social casual.
I recall after the acquisition and subsequR&D change in managemR&D in Big Fish,, the company needed to migrate teams away from legacy projects into more protective opportunities. What's the progress there? Has Mike Lang continued that process? Has he altered it? Where are we at with social casual and improving Big Fish,?
Yeah. Thanks, Larry. Yeah. Mike's from the end of November, and he came from a digital R&DertainmR&D background. He is a very experienced senior executive from that role. For the reason that Mike really took swell with risk strategy, he has a similar approach to the way that we think about portfolio prioritization, execution, and creative developmR&D. Really, Mike has embraced that, and he's built a strong—or is in the throes of competing on building a strong team around him to do that.
He's worked himself many times in games and game portfolio and has been looking at the right priorities based off the skills, the capability, and our willingness to invest as well. From that perspective, he actually has made some of the tough decisions on things like Toy Story Drop and The Curse. At the same time, has really been driving focus around new opportunities like EverMerge and also working with the Plarium team about how do we look at what they're able to contribute in other parts of our portfolio is the best way to think about it. He's making good traction. He's building that momR&Dum, and I think he's building the right portfolio and the right skill sets to do that.
Okay. Thanks. Thanks for the feedback.
Thanks, Larry. Your next question comes from Sasha Kline with Evans & Partners. Please go ahead.
I just had one quick follow-up question. Can you say whether or not you think there was any impact on the participation in installed base from COVID-19 in the March or the March half? I do not think we can say it materially impacted the installed base. I think we can say there is a fee per day, which we have given you the guidance on unadjusted at $46 versus circa $50. Given it happened in the last two weeks of the period, I do not believe there is a material piece around an install base change.
Yeah. That is what I would have thought. I just want to look at the results of your peers. It does appear that across the three biggest, there was a net decline in the installed base. I guess I am just wondering if you have got any theory about why that might have been the case.
I don't have anything off the top of my head, Sasha, to be honest with you. I haven't seen a shift. I would have to go back and look at whether there was actually a shift in some of the customers because we did see some customer movemR&D over the period. I would have to go back and look at whether there was anything in that space. Yeah. I might just add, I mean, you can see that we grew our installed base over the period, so we continued to take share. I think it was the continuation of that trend where it's not really a growing market. Any sort of gains that we're making are coming from the competition.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it.
Thanks, Sasha.
There are no further questions at this time. I'll now hand back to Mr. Croker for closing remarks.
Thank you, everybody, for your time. I'll now call the call to an end. On behalf of the broader Aristocrat team, we thank you for your interest in the company and wish you all the best and a safe time for you and your families and your teams as well. Thank you very much for your time.