Telkom's long-standing relationship with the publisher of the Yellow and White Pages is set to come to an end.
The telco has decided to exit all non-core businesses, which includes Trudon, CEO Sipho Maseko said today. Maseko noted Trudon has yet to be sold, but is now classed as an asset that is held for sale.
Trudon provides local commercial searches as well as advertising and marketing options to the local small and medium enterprise and corporate market. Its head office is in Johannesburg and it has six other branches in South Africa and one branch servicing Namibia.
In the year to March, Trudon turned over R1.1 billion, a slight decline on the previous year, and returned a profit of R367 million compared with R402 million in 2014. In the middle of 2012, the company said the bulky physical printed Yellow and White Pages will move online as Internet penetration grows, and the hard copy increasingly becomes a doorstop.
Telkom owns a 64.9% stake in Trudon, which said about a year ago its Yellow Pages app had been updated to helps consumers find local South African businesses with free navigation using the latest TomTom map data.
Trudon, which was known as Telkom Directory Services until March 2009, publishes the printed Yellow and White Pages on behalf of Telkom, among its other services. It is not clear what Telkom's sale means for the availability of the directory listings.
The company started in 1950 when Maister Publishing initiated the Yellow Pages business in South Africa and negotiated with the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, which registered the Yellow Pages trademark in South Africa.
This led to a contractual arrangement to sell White and Yellow Pages listings on behalf of the department. Maister Publishing received 25% of the advertising revenue sold in the phone books. The paper, printing and distribution cost of the White and Yellow Pages were paid for by the department.
In 1987, an electronic service called INFO Electronic Yellow Pages was introduced into the market. This was the beginning of the operator-assisted inquiry service better known today as 10-11-8.
In October 1997, Telkom SA bought a controlling interest in Maister Directories and merged the business interests of the two directory entities to form Telkom Directory Services.
In 2001, Trudon launched www.yellowpages.co.za - the Internet Yellow Pages which has been upgraded several times since then. The Yellow Pages has also been available as an app for iOS and Android devices for several years.
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