Zimpapers managed to surpass their revenue and profitability targets for the first 5 months of the year. 2018 has been an eventful year for Zimpapers, a month ago Zimpapers got awarded a TV broadcasting licence and prior to that Zimpapers hired Ruvheneko Parirenyatwa as the Radio Projects Manager.
To top all of that off, revenue collected from January-May this year amounted to $16.5 million which is slightly above the $16.25 million which they expected to rake in.
The $16.5 million is also a leap from last years $15.15 million revenue for the period under review. Apart from just generating revenue, Zimpapers has also managed to turn a profit of $1.8 million against a $1.3 million budget. Zimpapers CEO, Mr Deketeke, said the profit reflected a net profit margin of 11 percent.
Which divisions are bringing in the $$$?
As expected the publishing and digital contributed around 70% of the revenue which was a drop from 75% during the same period last year. Other contributors to revenue include:
- Radio – 12%
- Commercial printing – 18%
- ‘New products’ – 0.5%
Once we look more closely at the numbers making up the revenue, advertising (obviously) made up the bulk of the revenue as it amounted to 58% of the revenue. Copy sales made up 22%, digital advertising 1.5% respectively.
Finally warming up to the internet?
Revenue from Zimpapers publishing business fell from 75% to 70%. With more people consuming their content more on digital platforms Zimpapers are yet to figure out how exactly to monetize their efforts on the internet.
This year, Zimpapers had decided to limit content on their online platforms in order to push more physical copies of some of their papers. At the time we weren’t convinced that this route would be the answer and it seems Zimpapers are not really sure if that’s a good idea either. They recently started publishing full stories on their online platforms again and revamped a number of their sites including The Herald, and H-Metro.
These deliberate moves are a sign of an entity finally warming up to digital and understanding that this is the future and either you adapt or you become irrelevant.
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