T
jaša Luin Peric, CEO of Alfastreet, has seen no significant changes from April until today, “so we are facing the same issues as we were facing a few months ago,” she tells Yogonet in a video interview. With most of the casinos still closed in Europe, some of those that reopened still have a lot of restrictions. “We understand our customers, we support them. And we really hope that all our partners will reopen as soon as possible. And we will offer, of course, all the support from our side to help them to reopen and restart their operations.”
Peric says it is a very hard period for land-based casinos and all manufacturers in the gaming industry, with a little better situation in the case of online casinos. “I believe it’s very hard without reopening for more than half a year now. And we know that especially Latin America is facing even bigger issues than we have here in Europe, and most of the customers will start to reopen from September on, some of them also later,” she adds. However, she says the company tries to stay positive, and offers benefits to its clients, including financing. “So we really feel we are in touch every day almost with everybody. We try to collect as much information as possible from the markets and try to do our best to support our partners and our customers.”
The company’s chief executive says Alfastreet has been preparing since March. “So we are prepared at the moment. Our business is still healthy. We’ll try to maintain this stage through the end of the year. For this reason, we are still running in full capacity, including development. So we want to be strong after this situation. We are now continuing with all our development projects because we want to offer something new after this crisis. But it’s a difficult time to manage the company in these circumstances. So I really hope that this period could be behind us as soon as possible, for us and all our colleagues.”
Peric says distributors are facing very difficult times as well. “We try to bring something new to the market as soon as possible, we will be able to show it to our customers. I don’t know for how long this situation will continue like it is right now, but hopefully, we will start to visit our customers in the next maybe three to six months, that’s our plan.” She says some orders are still coming, and some markets have a potential, “they are working for the moment, operating quite well, I would say.”
But the numbers are far from what Alfastreet used to see before February, January. “So we have behind us very four great years, nothing to complain about. We understand that now everybody is a little bit afraid to invest, and they’re waiting to know when they can reopen and to start revesting. However, we are quite happy at least with the orders that we have currently. So I hope that this situation will last until the end of the year or even earlier, we hope so. It is very difficult to make any kind of forecasting in this situation because we could repeat the same story and the casinos could close, we know that.”
The company is developing some new games and new features on its products “because we want to be productive this time, to bring some novelties after this crisis, not only in terms of new games and new features, but also in terms of new cabinets,” Peric says. “So we try to work really closely with our distributors as well, with our main customers who understand the demand on the floor and to bring the concepts that we believe that will work well after they reopen. But certainly, now it’s not time to wait, now it’s time to invest and to bring some novelties on the market.”
Alfastreet CEO believes that the land-based casino industry will reopen “very successfully.” “People like to come to casinos, they like to leave the house and be outside playing live games. It’s not the same playing on the PC from home, with an online casino, or going individually to the casino,” Peric says. “We understand the situation now and people are afraid, also they are limited. But as soon as there is a possibility… I believe, people are social, so we like to socialize and we like to go outside, to meet people, to meet friends. So I believe that reopenings will be very soon, as soon as it is possible to reopen, of course.”
One of the latest releases from Alfastreet, which the company showcased at this year’s ICE London, is the new Verso single terminal. Peric says that due to the pandemic there was no time to deliver the product to the casino floors, “but we used this time to make some modifications to the product itself. So when we presented the Verso terminal in London we collected all the information and we did some modifications that we are going to present very shortly. And I believe that the terminal itself will be really well accepted because it’s a little bit different product, and suit very well our offering.”
Peric says the main markets for Alfastreet this year will be in Europe. She mentions Asia as well, “but maybe less in Latin America. These are our expectations for now, but all depends on how the next three months will be, but mainly we count on European customers.”
Watch the full video interview with Alfastreet CEO Tjaša Luin Peric on Yogonet’s YouTube channel.