Network operator Neotel has increased its revenue by 25% and grown its customer base by more than 100% in the past year. It now has more than 100 000 retail customers.
It’s also grown its business customer base by more than 50%.
But the company isn’t divulging rand numbers for revenue or earnings for the 2012 financial year, which ended on 31 March. However, parent Tata Communications’ filing with the US Securities & Exchange Commission shows that the group’s start-up business — “primarily Neotel” — showed revenues of US$363m.
Neotel CEO Sunil Joshi says one of the company’s key goals for the financial year was to achieve positive Ebitda (a measure of profit before tax, interest payments and other deductions). It achieved this in the second quarter of the financial year, and at year-end has increased it by 113%.
Joshi attributes the growth to improved service delivery and reduced installation times for new customers. Although Neotel’s transmission and Internet protocol services divisions have both grown by more than 20% in the period, its managed services and value-added services division has grown by 159% since 2011.
According to Joshi, Neotel has grown its national Ethernet facilities during the year. The network now covers more than 40 SA cities linked via 12 000km of national optical fibre.
“We have 800Gbit/s of capacity on main routes and this is upgradeable to 3,2Tbit/s,” says Joshi. “It’s a future-proof network designed to grow and adapt to demand.”
The company also has about 6 500km of metropolitan fibre and Joshi says this is further bolstered by the fact that Neotel enjoys access to all five submarine cables that land in SA.
Joshi says a year ago there were questions in the market as to whether or not Neotel — and by extension its parent, India’s Tata Communications — would stay in SA but he says the company doesn’t plan to go anywhere. “We’re aiming to grow consumer subscriber numbers by another 50 000 customers, or 50%, in the year ahead and 30% on the corporate side.” — (c) 2012 NewsCentral Media
