Johannesburg, 04 Apr 2008
South Africa's second national operator Neotel has exceeded its R1 billion revenue target for the 2007/8 financial year.
Speaking yesterday, Neotel MD Ajay Pandey revealed Neotel's own efforts and those of newly approved acquisition Transtel had contributed equally to the revenue.
"We have had an exceptional 12 to 18 months. We are seeing daily progress in the roll-out of our network and our customers are seeing real savings in their telecoms costs. Importantly, we are seeing repeat orders from our customers," he explained.
Pandey would not disclose when the company expects to hit profitability. However, he said Neotel would most likely follow the international trend of taking three years before producing respectable earnings.
"Our objectives for the 2007/8 financial year were to build the Neotel team, continue with our network deployment, launch our service offerings for enterprise customers, conclude our consumer pilot, grow our revenue base and complete the Transtel acquisition. On these fronts we have been very successful," said Pandey.
Since April last year, Neotel's staff complement has "more than doubled" to 327 employees. An additional 530 staffers have been acquired through the Transtel deal.
Pandey also announced the appointments of Mukul Sharma as executive head of the consumer business unit and Calvin Theko as executive head of legal and company secretary.
Looking forward, Pandey said he had targeted a doubling in revenue and organisational size for the upcoming year.
"We have much we want to do this year. We will launch our consumer offerings, bring new products and services to the market and continue building our strategic alliances. Also, we are launching a brand advertising campaign which will grow our profile in the market," he disclosed.
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