"TBG enjoyed strong sales growth in 2014"

What can you say about firm’s performance in 2014? 
TBG enjoyed strong sales growth in 2014. Part of our strategy in the past year was to evaluate other markets outside the North American and Australasian regions where we are already well-established. This year we also increased the number of exhibitions. Traditionally we have been exhibiting at Las Vegas G2E and Sydney AGE shows. This year we have also exhibited at Macau (G2E and MGS) as well as at SAGSE Argentina for the first time, and in 2015 we will exhibit at the London ICE for the first time.

Besides increased marketing activities we have also increased our capabilities throughout the company. In Sydney we have invested in a CNC router and printer, assisting our R&D team to make prototype in-house rather than relying on external suppliers reducing product development lead-time. Our China operations have moved to a much larger and more modern facility. Additional upgrades have also happened at our Las Vegas operations, and we have also invested in human resources throughout the company.

What are company’s expectations for 2015? 
TBG will celebrate 20 years of business in 2015. As the gaming industry is currently undergoing some challenges, we think we have made the necessary investments to put us in a very good position to continue our growth in 2015. We have some very interesting projects in the works currently that we expect will come to fruition in 2015. We will also continue our investments in 2015 to secure future growth beyond 2015.

Can you reveal to us any plans for TBG launchings, or other news for 2015?
Our early involvement with the customers’ engineering teams helps enhance the final look, feel and function of our customer’s cabinets. We have many exciting project in the works currently. Many of them are customer specific and we of course cannot talk about them. Other projects are for our own product developments that we will offer to the general market, and we would like to keep them close to our chest at this point in time. Our new Magnum topper that we released during 2014 has received excellent market response, and we will continue designing new shapes and sizes.

What are main challenges for the gaming industry?
Big mergers in the industry. The Industry waiting to see what the outcomes are and how they will affect them. Also, Latin America importation laws. The strict importation laws in Latin America is preventing the gaming industry from expanding in this region.

What are your clients’ biggest concerns?
Cost is always a major concern in any design. Many of the games are nowadays released with feature toppers specific to the game. A game specific topper is a big investment in resources and tooling costs and also a big risk should the game not perform well. We must always be mindful of this and make sure that we offer the right technologies when we are working with the client’s R&D team.