This week Econet published their financial results for the year to February 2010. The results presentation, available on SlideShare here has a number of highlights but the outstanding one is the US $113 million Profit after Tax results! Total revenue for the period is US $362 million. Basic earnings per share per share were at a generous US 66c.
Econet has also announced the dividend for all its shareholders registered in the Econet books by 30 May 2010. The dividend stands at US 14 cents per share and will be paid out in cash around the end of June 2010.
This not a surprise really to most of us here. In a country with at least 5.6 million mobile subscribers, Econet accounts for about 4 million, 70% of all the mobile subscribers in Zimbabwe. Econet’s growth makes the telecoms industry the fastest growing in Zimbabwe, a country struggling to recover from a decade of Economic decline.
Econet has increased its subscriber base from just 1 million at the start of 2009. The huge surge in subscriber numbers is owed to a massive network upgrade project that started last year and is still going on.
Econet also launched data services on the network in August last year, though they quickly ran out of capacity for more data subscribers and suspended subscriptions. Just at the start of this week, Ecoweb, an Econet internet service subsidiary launched mobile WiMax.
Other interesting revelations in the results are:
- A 200% increase in network coverage around Zimbabwe
- Intra-Econet traffic now comprising 80% of all calls on the network
- 200 base stations have been installed in the year.
- Econet will this year start the rollout of green power base stations
Econet: 2010 annual results presentation
