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Tawanda Musarurwa
Zimbabwe’s largest diversified media group, Zimpapers (1980) Limited surpassed its revenue and profitability targets for the first five months of the year, despite battling a significant exchange loss impact resulting from the change of functional currency earlier this year.
Zimpapers CEO Mr Pikirayi Deketeke told shareholders at the group’s annual general meeting today that strategic focus had allowed the company to sidestep a number of macroeconomic challenges to perform ahead of targets. For the five-months period to May 2019, the group’s revenue totaled ZWL$25,3 million, 34 percent above the set target of ZWL$18, 8 milllion.
Revenue for the period under review was also 53 percent up from the prior comparable period.
“Despite the challenges that we have as an economy, the inflation and chasing the United States dollar our revenues are currently sitting at around ZWL$25,3 million and we have done better than budget, which was ZWL$18, 8 million.
“Most of this money has been coming through from newspapers, which are still key. Commercial printing brought in ZWL$5,3 million, Radio broadcasting ZWL$2,9 million, Zimbabwe Television Network (ZTN) without a licence yet is contributing about ZWL$200 000, while the new baby BoldAds contributed ZWL$131 000,” he said.
In terms of profit for the period, the group is sitting at around ZWL$1,32 million against a budget of around $1,15 million, with the digital and publishing division contributing the bulk of the profits at ZWL$2,58 million.-BH24
Temba Dube