Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and I warmly welcome you to today's earnings call of ZEAL Network SE, following the publication of the half-year figures of 2025 earlier this morning. I'm delighted to welcome the CEO, Dr. Helmut Becker, and the CFO, Andrea Behrendt, who will guide us through the presentation and the results shortly. Before I hand over to the Management Board, let me kindly remind you that every participant is in a listen-only mode, and after the presentation, we will move on to a Q&A session in which you will be allowed to place your questions directly via the audio line. Questions via chat cannot be submitted today. Having said this, Andrea, the stage is yours.
Thanks a lot. Good morning, everyone. Great to have you joining us this morning for ZEAL's half-year earnings call. You should all be seeing the presentation. If not, please have a look at our Investor Relations section on our website. There, the presentation is available. Here's what we will cover today. First, a short look at the H1 summary. Next, we will dive into the details of the financials. We will follow up with an update on strategic focus and guidance, and we will wrap it up with our key takeaways. After that, we are happy to take your questions. With that, handing over to Helmut, please.
Thanks, Andrea, and welcome and good morning also from my side. The headline for the first half of the year is that we are consistently and successfully executing against our strategy. Despite a weak jackpot environment, both compared to statistical expectations and especially compared to the previous year, we've improved our gross margin once more. We've grown our customer base, and we've raised revenue, and as a result, increased EBITDA to more than EUR 35 million in the first half of 2025. In addition, we have people news. Carola von Schmettow was elected Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board, and we found my successor, Stefan Tweraser, will join the Executive Board on August 25th and become CEO on September 15th. Back to Andrea.
Thanks. Now, let's get into the details of H1 financials. Let's set the scene with the jackpot environment. As you know, jackpots are crucial for ZEAL, both in customer acquisition and in customer reactivation. The first half year saw only two peak jackpots compared to six peak jackpots last year. It was a weak jackpot environment. Despite this, we delivered strong performance in the first two quarters. This was driven by significant growth also from the customer base in Q4 last year. Now, on slide 7, you will see how this reflects in our financials. Here, I want to call out three key numbers. Revenues are up 32%, driven by 4% billings growth and strong margin growth. Marketing spend is up by 14%, and we acquired more new customers than ever before in such a weak jackpot environment.
Bottom line, we delivered a strong EBITDA of EUR 35 million, with a continuation of the momentum that we saw already in Q1. Let's take a closer look at the 4% billings growth on the lottery side, despite the challenging jackpot environment, of course. On the back of a strong Q4 customer acquisition and customer cohorts, we achieved 1.5 million monthly active users. These customers continue to spend an average of EUR 58 per month. As I previously mentioned, the second key driver behind the revenue growth is our margin expansion. We delivered a lottery gross margin of 17.3%, driven by the successful price increase that we had introduced last year in June, and a steadily improving product-market mix. Now, let's turn to the other topic that is important to us: our growth, our customer acquisitions on the customer acquisition side.
On slide 10, we acquired 499,000 new customers in the first half year, a record high for six months with such a weak two peak jackpots. This underlines the strength of our marketing strategy and our ability to grow the customer base even in weak jackpots. The cost per lead was EUR 46.9, which reflects the impact of the weaker jackpot environment, as expected, higher media cost, and strategic marketing tests that we are doing currently to target new customer segments, especially in our newer businesses. In our lottery brokerage business, the CPL was EUR 41.7, demonstrating the efficiencies that we have in our core business. Then we have games. Our games business continues to gain momentum, and we enhance our games portfolio and introduce new product features, and this pays off. We successfully grow the numbers of players as well as the average revenues generated.
This results in an impressive 49% year-over-year games revenues growth. This is a clear signal that our customers see value in our offering. With that, handing over to Helmut for our Traumhausverlosung , closing update.
Thanks, Andrea. We have successfully raffled off our third Dream House Raffle. I'd say three successful house raffles are now a pattern. On this slide, we give you an overview of all three completed house raffles so far. To help you compare the data, we've added the raffle duration on this slide. All three house raffles have been very successful, roughly in the same ballpark, and certainly more successful than we had planned originally. Our fourth House Raffle campaign started end of May. It's a beautiful house at the North Sea in Sankt Peter-Ording, you see it on the slide. Up until now, it shows the strongest performance metrics that we've seen so far. The draw of the fourth house will happen on the 15th of September, and we've already lined up the next two houses. Back to Andrea.
On slide 14, we are highlighting the three strategic areas, focus areas for 2025. The same priorities I shared already with you at the beginning of the year. Firstly, we strengthen our customer acquisition and profitability in our core brokerage business. We make great progress here. In H1, we achieved an underlying lottery gross margin of over 17%, as mentioned already, and we improved customer acquisition even in weak jackpot environments. Secondly, we are scaling Traumhausverlosung following the successful launch. We heard already from Helmut that House 4 is delivering the strongest performance to date, and we remain on track to deliver our four draws per year that are already exceeding all our initial expectations. Thirdly, we continue to grow the games offering. Our portfolio has now expanded to over 480 games, and we delivered 49% year-over-year growth.
In summary, we are well on track to deliver on all the strategic promises we made. All in all, we are reaffirming our full-year guidance for 2025. Following a strong start in Q1 and Q2 this year, we remain confident in this outlook we shared with you, and we expect to end up in the upper range. At the same time, we are actively reviewing additional investment opportunities. Particularly, we want to accelerate growth in our new business areas. Of course, with the overall goal to drive long-term value for our shareholders. Now, handing over to Helmut to close the presentation with the key takeaways.
Thanks, Andrea. Our gross margin is now above 17%. We continue to grow the business. The strength of our business leads to strong and increasing profitability with an EBITDA above EUR 35 million for the first half of the year and an EBITDA margin at 35%. Finally, as this is my last earnings call, I would like to say goodbye and thanks to you, our investors and analysts. I thoroughly enjoyed the last 14 years with ZEAL, two as a Supervisory Board member, two as a Board member, and then 10 as CEO. I've led ZEAL through multiple transformations, and this has been hugely rewarding. Most importantly, I'm very grateful to my fantastic team for their support and dedication, and not least the many things I learned from them. They have done the heavy lifting.
Looking forward, let me just say this: there's still enormous growth potential for ZEAL, and ZEAL is better positioned than ever to capture this growth, especially with the strong team that we've built together with our leaders and Andrea and Paul on the Executive Board. My last duty for ZEAL will be to welcome my successor, Stefan, support his onboarding, and hand over the business as best I can. I will cheer him on, and I will remain a shareholder. I would like to thank you for your trust, support, questions, and feedback. Thank you. That's it.
Thank you for the dive into your first half year, and congratulations on the results. We will now move on to the Q&A session, and I'm happy to take your questions. To keep this conversation engaging, we appreciate it if you ask your questions via person in the audio line. To do so, just raise up your virtual hand. We received in the meantime some virtual hands, and the first one is Tim Kruse. Please go ahead and ask your question.
Yes, good morning, and congratulations on a great quarter once again. Two questions from my side. First one, maybe to Andrea, on the marketing spending. I mean, you reiterated the guidance for EUR 60 million- EUR 70 million. However, H1 was slightly below half of that. What can we expect for the second half? Some additional marketing initiatives, or is it fair to assume that we're probably more at the lower end of that corridor you're guiding for?
Yeah, I think the corridor still stands. Of course, we have two drivers that impact our spend in the second half of the year. On the first hand, it's a jackpot environment. Unfortunately, we cannot forecast that, but we assume a standard jackpot environment and the spend there, so a bit higher than what we had in H1. Additionally, like I already said, we are looking at investment opportunities, and these will be mainly on the marketing side.
Okay, understood. A second question to Helmut. On the Dream House Raffle, thanks for providing those metrics, especially the days. I did the quick math, and on the day metrics, the third house was on the level of the first house. I was just wondering, also seeing your comments on the current house, the third house was the only one which was not a coastal house. Is that fair to assume that there's maybe also a connection there, that the demand for these coastal retreat houses is maybe a bit higher, and that's something you're looking into for the next houses?
I think we're still learning in terms of the appeal of the houses. The third house was different, like you said, the location was not a coastal location. It was not as much a location in a holiday area like the other houses or the fourth house. Also, style-wise, architecture-wise, it was a different type of house. All of this, I think, is contributing and influencing the performance of the houses. I think it's also very fair to say that the third house performed very, very strongly. We're happy to see that the fourth house is performing even stronger. We will continue to learn which houses have the highest appeal, and of course, then design our house strategy accordingly.
Okay, all the best for that. All the best to you. Thank you for your contribution. Yeah, thanks.
Thank you for your questions, Tim. Now we will move on with the questions from Marius Fuhrberg. Please ask your questions, Marius.
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking my questions. First of all, also with regards to marketing, Andrea, you mentioned that you plan some investment initiatives there. Can you be a little bit more specific on what that exactly means and what kind of marketing ways you want to elaborate further and how this should or what we should think of this? Secondly, also with regards to the marketing, could you provide a breakdown on how much of the marketing costs, especially in Q2 or maybe also in H1, was attributed to Traumhausverlosung and how much to lotteries? Finally, also to mention that you still have some headroom in H2 for marketing to reach your guidance.
Also considering your EBITDA, I think what we're referring to is, I think if we look at EBITDA of EUR 35 million in H1, and if you consider or if you expect a normal jackpot environment, should we not at least reach the upper end, if not slightly above, your EBITDA guidance range?
Thanks, Marius. Answering your questions, on the digital marketing, we can give you one very tangible idea that we are looking into. Like we said, Traumhausverlosung is very successful. The fourth house is running very well. We are looking into accelerating growth significantly. There would be significant additional investments into performance and brand marketing focused on Traumhausverlosung . On the lottery, on the split of the CPL or the marketing spend, like we communicated already in the presentation, we separate out the core lottery brokerage business, and this had a CPL of EUR 41.7 for H1. On the EBITDA, like I already said, we expect us to end up on the upper range of the guidance for sure.
Thank you very much.
Thank you for your questions. The last person in the queue is Henry Wendisch. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi, good morning, and thanks for the presentation. Congrats to you on another good quarter. My question is sort of talking on what the others have prepared for us, regarding the Traumhaus , maybe to put this more into perspective. The average billing is at roughly EUR 22, and we know the billings margin roughly, so the average revenue per user is roughly the same as in the classic lottery business, but the cost per lead, as you mentioned before, are also much higher than that in the classic lottery, which means or implies for profitability that Traumhaus is, of course, also in the ramp-up phase, but less profitable than the classic lottery business. Is that a fair assumption, or am I missing something?
I think you have to calculate the customer lifetime value based on the good margins, and then compare that to the acquisition cost, and then you actually get to a very favorable-looking business model or business case.
We are still in the scaling phase, so the marketing investments also have an investment part that is in building the brand, building the product category up for the market, and long term, the efficiencies should improve there as well.
Yeah, sure. This is how it looks like based on the numbers you reported thus far. That's why I was curious how you think these figures might be progressing. Maybe you also expect the average revenue per user in this field to go up. I think, down the road, the cost per lead is going to go down. I mean, you're in the ramp-up phase, as you said before. Maybe I'll look back to Frank with some more details on this. I would like to know if there are any news on the games license. You have this side condition that you're not able to address the lottery customers thus far. Is there anything new on this side?
No. We continue to develop games and submit games for approval, so that is a continuous process. We expect that the process will continue to run smoother and smoother over time. We have added great games to our portfolio. Book of Ra is one of the best-known, most-played games in the market. We have that in our portfolio right now. We also will add some key features on the bonus side to our games business, so we will become more competitive in that regard. That's good news. The restrictions on cross-selling remain the same, and as you know, they are severe.
All right, got it. Thanks very much. It was nice talking to you, Helmut, for all the years, and I wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for your questions, Henry. In the meantime, we did not receive any further questions, so please feel invited that it's still possible. Let's wait a couple of seconds. Maybe another virtual hand pops up, but it seems everything is discussed and there are no further questions. We therefore come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you, everyone, for joining in this lively conversation. Should further questions arise at a later time, please feel free to contact Frank Hoffman from Investor Relations. Also, a big thank you to you, Helmut and Andrea, for your presentation and the time you took today. Helmut, also from my side, all the best for you. It was always a pleasure from my side. I wish you all a lovely remaining week and a hand back to Andrea for some final remarks.
Thank you once again for joining our call this morning and your continued interest in ZEAL. We appreciate that. A special thanks to Helmut for your outstanding contribution to ZEAL's success story, and I enjoyed the years with you together a lot. I look forward to joining the next earnings call in November together with Stefan. Thanks a lot and have a good day.
Thank you. Bye-bye.