impact of Covid-19<\/a><\/em><\/strong> will be on New Zealand, and therefore on Lotto NZ\u2019s performance. However, given the unprecedented nature of what we are witnessing we have taken a conservative approach to setting targets for the 2020\/21 year, and have set our sales and profits targets slightly lower than the modelled long-run median.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nAlthough it saw significant growth in players using the digital channel MyLotto during phases three and four of lockdown, the firm believes sales through retail outlets will remain lower than usual due to social distancing measures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said: \u201cFewer people shopping in retail is likely to have a detrimental impact on the sales of physical Instant Kiwi tickets, which are typically an add-on purchase, and therefore driven by in-store foot traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Retail sales for the year ending June 30 2020 totalled NZ$935 million (US$625.4 million). Lotto NZ forecasts sales of NZ$810.4 million (US$542.1 million) for July 2020 to June 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Digital sales went from NZ$270 million (US$180.6 million) in 2018\/2019 to NZ$406 million (US$271.6 million) for the year ending June 30. For the following year it expects digital sales of NZ$418.3 million (US$279.8 million).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It expects total sales for the year ending June 30 2021 to reach NZ$1.23 billion (US$823 million).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lotto NZ said: \u201cWe are still assessing the changes in player behaviour now that almost all Lotto outlets have re-opened, but we do not expect channel distribution to return to pre-Covid-19 levels.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lotto NZ also noted that in the year 2019\/2020 there had been unprecedented Powerball jackpots, including a NZ$50 million (US$33.45 million) jackpot, “the highest-ever jackpot in New Zealand”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It said: \u201cWe have no reason to believe that in the 2020\/21 year, Powerball will cease to be the main driver of performance, and as such sales will continue to be subject to the relative fluctuations the Powerball jackpot drives\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Operating expenses are expected to increase from 5.3 per cent of total sales during the year that ended June 30, to 6.6 per cent in the following year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Profits were down last year to NZ$320.1 million (US$214.1 million) and are expected to fall further to NZ$280 million (US$187.3 million) in the current financial year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lotto NZ expects an 8.4 drop in sales for the year 2020\/2021, with a reduction in tickets sold through retail outlets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8564,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Lotto NZ forecasts an 8.4% year-on-year sales drop for FY2021, primarily due to reduced retail foot traffic impacting physical ticket sales, despite significant growth in its digital channel, MyLotto. The New Zealand Lottery Commission anticipates overall sales of NZ$1.23 billion and profits of NZ$280 million, reflecting a conservative outlook and a permanent shift in channel distribution post-Covid-19. This decline is also influenced by the absence of unprecedented Powerball jackpots seen in the prior year.","focusai_entities":"New Zealand Lottery Commission, Lotto NZ, MyLotto","focusai_location":"New Zealand","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.8), compliance_legal (0.7), operator_casino (0.9), product_ux (0.7), tech_data (0.7), marketing_crm (0.8), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (1.0), supplier_vendor (0.8), journalist_researcher (0.9)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Digital Channel Strategy","query":"What specific strategic initiatives is Lotto NZ implementing to further monetize the sustained growth in its MyLotto digital channel and mitigate the long-term decline in retail foot traffic, particularly concerning player acquisition and retention in the online vertical?"},{"label":"Profitability & Cost Structure","query":"Given the projected increase in operating expenses as a percentage of total sales and the decline in overall profits, what cost optimization strategies or revenue diversification efforts are being considered to improve Lotto NZ's profitability margins and NGR?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16336,157],"tags":[16459,338],"class_list":["post-8562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australasia-news","category-business-news","tag-lotto-nz","tag-new-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8562"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8584,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8562\/revisions\/8584"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}