09 Jul 2019

 Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) has recorded a profit after tax of P162m for the year ended March 31, 2019, posting a decline of 25 per cent compared to P217m recorded in the previous year.

Giving a review of the financial results on July 8 , general manager finance Mr Abel Bogatsu said the performance was attributable to an 8 per cent decline in revenue from contracts with customers to P1.448m and a 28 per cent increase in depreciation to P199m due to an increase in investment on mobile and fixed networks.

“The operating costs were under control and declined by 4 per cent to P639m which resulted in a 5 per cent decline in earnings before interest, taxation, depreciation and amortisation to P349m,” he said.

Mr Bogatsu said the overall decline in revenue was mainly attributable to unfavourable trading conditions which saw restrained consumer spending, resulting in a 12 per cent decline on the mobile business despite the introduction of new products and services in the market and other initiatives to promote uptake.He highlighted that other revenue lines such as fixed voice remained relatively flat whilst fixed broadband declined marginally.

In line with global trends, Mr Bogatsu said consumers continued to switch to newer and cheaper alternative products with lower margins shift from voice to data-centric services thus increasing pressure on margins.

He said the company made efforts to contain overall costs by releasing major costs savings in installation, staff, network and transmission costs and efficiencies in inventory management.“Transformation efforts to position the company for sustainable growth through significant investments in network technology, modernisation of IT Enterprise systems, roll out of relevant and impactful products and instilling a high-performance culture which started in the previous year continued into the year under review,” he said.

 He said the company saw an increase in smartphone penetration on the network as customers continued to switch from feature and basic phones to their affordable 4G enabled devices in line with their mobile device strategy. He also said the overall mobile subscriber base also managed to increase by 6 per cent.

“As part of our digitalised programme, BTC commercially launched its Data Centre and improved VSAT services and has already experienced increased uptake of this services, delivering high speed and affordable internet connectivity of up to 50Mbps anywhere in Botswana,” he said.

These services he said, have improved service quality and customer experience and as a result, BTC has seen an increase in customer retention.As competition intensifies, the company continues to launch new and improved products in line with demands for the various customer segments. During the year we launched Live Social, revamped Turnup bundles, Live Freely, Video bundles and other mobile and fixed data products.He said the BTC has approved a final dividend of 5.73 thebe per share. “This follows an interim dividend of 3.53 thebe per share which the company declared and paid for in the interim results taking the total annual dividend in respect of the financial year to 9.26 thebe per share,” he said.

Mr Bogatsu said the dividend is said to be payable to all shareholders registered in the books of the company at the close of business on 30 July 2019.The ex-dividend date will be July 26, 2019. The dividend will be paid net of applicable withholding taxes under the country’s Income Tax Act on or before 9 August 2019.

For his part, BTC managing director Mr Anthony Masunga said the corporation’s story was about sustainable development the reason why for the past year, their strategic focus had been on modernising telecommunication infrastructure. ENDS