Neotel has reported a 21 per cent rise in year-on-year revenue for the six month period ending September 30, amid ongoing negotiations with Vodacom over the network operator buying a 100 per cent stake in the company.
HumanIPO reported last month Vodacom had confirmed it was in discussions to acquire Neotel, which launched its commercial LTE service in the Gauteng province in August.
The results also showed the telecommunications company had turned a profit before tax for the first time in its seven year history.
Neotel’s earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) also rose 105 per cent year-on-year.
Sunil Joshi, managing director and chief executive officer (CEO) of Neotel, would not comment on the ongoing talks with Vodacom, but did consider a “combined entity” would be able to offer a more “expanded product range” and allow the company to “extend its footprint in South Africa”.
Concerning the results, Joshi said: “The plan was to turn ebitda positive in FY12 – team Neotel did this. Then we set a target of being ebit positive in FY13 – Neotel did this too. Now we have achieved our target of being PBT positive – ahead of plan.”
Neotel now has 175,000 individual customers and around 3,000 business customers.
