888 Holdings updated the market on the year ended 31 December on Tuesday, reporting continued progress during the second half culminating in all-time monthly record revenue in December.

In the first half of 2019, 888 reported pretax profit of USD22.2 million, down from USD60.1 million a year before, on USD277.3 million in revenue, down from USD283.9 million. In 2018, the company’s pretax profit was USD108.7 million on revenue of USD529.9 million.

While poker remained a challenging market, 888 said it was pleased by the first-phase rollout of its Poker 8 platform. The company will add “a number of exciting new product features” and will be rolling out the final-phase platform in 2020.

Revenue in the UK continue to increase, 888 said. Italy put in a continued good performance during the second half of the year aided by the success of Casino, it said.

Revenue from Spain was affected by the launch of competitors’ shared poker liquidity networks between Spain, Portugal and France. However, 888 Holdings said it is encouraged by the early performance of its own shared liquidity network between Portugal and Spain which was launched in July, as well as by progress in the Swedish and Romanian market.

888 acquired a sports betting platform back in March and said it remains on track to launch its first proprietary sports product during the first half of 2020

“The group has delivered solid progress. We are very encouraged by the growth in new customers during 2019 with a record of more than one million new customers signing up to 888’s brands during the year”, said Chief Executive Itai Frieberger.

“We have entered 2020 with good momentum across several regulated European markets and, underpinned by further investment in our team, marketing and product development, we remain focused on achieving further progress in the US.”