“Our focus has and always will be on customer requirements”

(Exclusive interview).- After SAGSE 2018 in Buenos Aires, Amatic Industries’ Thomas Engstberger talked with Focus Gaming News.

Argentina.- Amatic Industries enjoyed a successful attendance during this year’s SAGSE in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The company’s stand was one of the busiest at the event, with upcoming projects continuing to expand Amatic’s presence in the international gaming market. Focus Gaming News spoke with Thomas Engstberger, Sales Manager, to discover more about the company’s experience.

Regional events like SAGSE give operators the opportunity to interact with potential partners. Are you actively looking for new partnerships? How did SAGSE help you further develop your presence in Argentina?

We believe that regional events vitalise the industry and help to keep information and communication flowing between operators and manufacturers. Naturally, it is the opportunity to present one’s latest solutions. That is why we often invest in being present at such shows. Here we are focusing on the land-based market with our local partner Oasis Entertainment. AMATIC is a well-recognised and very respected brand in Latin America and we have been active in this continent for many years. Naturally, we rise to the challenge and respond to new opportunities. It is our strategy to support our customers on a local basis and we envisage increasing our partnership base in Latin America in the future.

At SAGSE Buenos Aires you showcased the Performer Grand Arc slant-top and Amarox C24 upright cabinets, both with Multi Game. How was the response from the public? Do you take into consideration the feedback from attendees in Latin American events in order to personalise your offering in local markets?

We were pleased with the feedback from the SAGSE exhibition. We had the opportunity to speak with a good number of operators. Our focus has and always will be on customer requirements. So, to answer your question, we are naturally always open to feedback from local customers. This helps us to develop and personalise our products to match local preferences. We have a great number of titles available in our MULTI GAME range and ensure that we can offer the right games. Some of them have global, some a more local appeal. That all counts on experience in creating and developing games to satisfy the player.

AMATIC is a well-recognised and very respected brand in Latin America and we have been active in this continent for many years

While the Latin American market is continuously growing, as it can be seen in Colombia and Peru, the online sector in other countries seems to be a subject that still needs a push. What can you do, along with your local partner Oasis Entertainment Group, in order to improve the situation of the industry in Argentina?

Our focus at present in Argentina is to support land-based operators with land-based solutions. If and when the Argentinian government looks at establishing a salient online gaming law, we will look to see how we can then support such a market with our AMANET range of online games. We are already active in Colombia and have received positive feedback on the popularity of our games there.

Your parent company is based in Austria, a country surrounded with well-established regulations and markets that can be beneficial for your operations. How different is to the process to customise your offering in markets that haven’t reached their full potential, such as the Latin American? Do you think that in such regions it is necessary to start with local partners in order to be successful?

This is a specific strength of AMATIC. We are an independent company and can tailor our solutions to each particular market. Therefore, we see ourselves as being at an advantage in such situations. We always look to see how we can best support our customers on a global basis and if our conclusion is that this is best done through a local partnership, then we consciously make this decision to find the right partner who shares our values and goals.

What can we expect from AMATIC in the last quarter of the year? Are you planning on exhibiting your products at other events?

The exhibition calendar is drawing to a close for this year so there are no so many shows left to support. We will be attending the G2E Las Vegas show. In November we will exhibit at the Bulgarian gaming show – the BEGE – together with our local partner there.