HONG KONG, May 12, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- V1 Group Limited has recently announced that a resolution for changing of the Company's name to Crazy Sports Group Limited ("Crazy Sports") had been approved by shareholders at the Company's Annual General Meeting.
According to the public announcement, the Company, with Crazy Sports as its core business, is positioning itself as China's leading sports lottery and entertainment company, offering online sports information services, interactive live-streaming, sports quizzes, sports mobile games and offline sports lottery retail services, and is dedicated to building a multi-channel entertainment platform allowing real-time participation in sports events. Following the official change of the Company's name, Crazy Sports is on its path to the next level of expansion, striving at expanding its business scale and market share.
In this connection, Mr. Peng Xitao, CEO of the Group, spoke to Securities Daily.
Reporter: According to the announcement, sports entertainment will become the core business driver of Crazy Sports after the Company's name change. When did you decide on commencing such a bustling sports entertainment business?
Peng Xitao: Subsequent to the release of "Several Opinions of the State Council on Acceleration of the Development of the Sports Industry and Stimulation of the Sports-related Consumption" in the State Council Circular No.46 in October 2014, the sports industry has since been considered a green and emerging industry supported by the Chinese Government, earmarking to reach in excess of RMB5 trillion in aggregate value by 2025. This RMB5 trillion target market size was warmly welcomed by capital market participants who then designated the sports entertainment industry as the next focus of the market with the support from favourable government policies. All these marked the beginning of a trend of rapid growth for the sports entertainment.
In fact, we entered the sports industry years before the release of Circular No.46. Even before we established our forecasts on the value of sports entertainment sector, we had developed a well-articulated, accretive business model for our sports entertainment operations business. Despite having witnessed a downsizing of the sports industry in 2019, the capital market had been continuing to focus its attention on the sector and anticipating substantial investments to capture profit opportunities.
Reporter: Many companies in China are keen to reach out for an integrated sports and entertainment platform. What's the next new strategy for Crazy Sports to secure its target of achieving doubling of its revenue?
Peng Xitao: The sports industry is backed by government policies, providing high potential for market development. The official change of the Company's name not only marks a milestone step for Crazy Sports but also landing of the first Chinese internet sports concept company in the Hong Kong stock market. Capitalising on resources from the capital market, Crazy Sports is set on a high-growth trajectory.
Following years of development, along with granting of approvals for establishment of a sports quiz platform in Hainan and IP rights from FIFPro, we have put in place all necessary segments in our business architecture. As supported by the Hainan sports quiz qualification, leveraging our core competitive edges in sports lottery user base, rich sports event and user big data and top football IPs, we are emerging into a sports and entertainment service operator engaging in sports lottery paid content services, sports social interaction, sports quizzes and sports mobile games. With the upcoming of UEFA Euro, Olympic Games, Winter Olympics, World Cup, and the Asian Cup which is to be hosted in China, the sports industry will be ushered into a period of high growth in the next three years. I firmly believe that we will grow our revenue many times from the current level and become a unicorn in terms of market value among the internet sports entertainment industry in China.
Reporter: An array favourable policies for sports sector have been introduced in Hainan in April this year. Also noted in the announcement, Hainan sport quiz will be a core support of the business. What is the latest update of progress of the business?
Peng Xitao: In February, Crazy Sports entered into strategic cooperation with Huochain Technology under Huobi Group to establish a transparent and credible online sports quiz system and platform driven by block chain technologies.
The UEFA Euro will become a euphoria among football fans joining our sports quiz and entertainment events. In line with its user attributes and developmental model of the sports quiz business, Crazy Sports will launch more inviting games tapping the UEFA Euro euphoria. Meanwhile, based our expertise and sports events big data accumulated over the years, Crazy Sports has prepared to offer more professional sports analysis, generating data to be shared in quizzes and other segments, delivering the most exciting entertainment experiences to the users.
Reporter: The UEFA Euro is going to be the first among the major sports events to be held in 2021. How has Crazy Sports prepared for the event?
Peng Xitao: Crazy Sports signed with the Fédération Internationale des Associations de Footballeurs Professionnels (FIFPro), an international sports organization, in January this year an agreement to secure FIFPro IP rights between 2021 and 2023. This marks the beginning of our UEFA Euro strategy in mobile games. We will soon launch our flagship UEFA Euro mobile game Ace Soccer.
Crazy Red Insights is well prepared for the UEFA Euro, including enhancements and upgrading of product features, engaging more celebrity experts, and enlisting cooperation channels such as V and Cbox. In particular, Cbox owns broadcasting rights for the UEFA Euro and has a huge user coverage base. At present, we are also actively expanding our cooperation channels. With major sports events around the corner, there will be increasing demand from entry-level users for lottery information on Crazy Red Insights. To cater to the emerging market, Crazy Red Insights will step up investment and promotion efforts in all applicable markets to entice more new users. During the UEFA Euro, the 27 sports channels in cooperation with Crazy Red Insights will see exponential growth in usage traffic, and so will Crazy Red Insights, www.zgzcw.com and Crazy Sports. Based on our experience, sales from Crazy Red Insights are expected to increase two to three folds during the UEFA Euro.
Reporter: Besides online business, what is the current progress of the new sports lottery retail business partnered with convenience stores? Any information on regional coverage and relevant data that can be shares with the public?
Peng Xitao: Our new sports lottery retail business has been running smoothly this year, and we have been seeing our contracted convenience store chains steadily adding outlets with sports lottery sale facilities. For the four months ended April, newly added lottery retail POS accounted for 83.35% of total number of retail POS last year. The newly added channels include Lakala, Lawson in Anhui, Milan Express in Tianjin, Tianfu in Hunan, Sanyou Aijia Supermarket in Chongqing and Manhao Convenience Store in Anhui, across 11 provinces. The number of retail POS is forecasted to reach 5,000 by end-June this year. As the expansion of retail POS accelerates, we are paying more attention to the quality control of retail POS. By end-March this year, we launched our proprietary maintenance and management platform for convenience store channels, improving significantly our operational efficiency.
