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Johannesburg - IT company Gijima AST [JSE:GIJ] on Tuesday
returned to profit, reporting diluted headline earnings per share of 3.11 cents
for the six month ended December 2011 after a loss of 28.13 cents a year ago.
No dividend was declared and the resumption of payment of
dividends will be reviewed by the Board in future, based on the group's trading
at the time, it said.
Revenue increased by 7.5% to 1.337bn, with earnings before
interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation reflecting an 83.5% at R78.2m.
The company said the Professional Services Division had an
outstanding six months and recorded revenue growth of 26.3% on the previous year.
A profit of R36.4m was achieved, compared to last year's reported loss of
R37.7m, a positive swing of R74.1m.
The Systems Integration unit, which was particularly
impacted by the Department of Home Affairs settlement last year, delivered a
much improved performance and is successfully deploying some substantial
projects. The ERP business also showed excellent growth, with significant new
SAP project implementations during the period. The pipeline for this line of
business remains healthy, it said.
The mining technical solutions business produced very strong
results, with a marked improvement in the top and bottom line for the
half-year.
Revenue for the Managed Services Division was marginally
down, with profit down 35%. This decline is attributed to the Unified
Communications, Data Centre and Security units which had a relatively muted
performance due to low sales volumes.
The Distributed Computing business showed respectable top
line growth and maintained relatively healthy margins through its favourable
services mix and continuous optimisation drive. Gijima continues to expand its
mobility offerings and, although the contribution from this area is still small
at present, the group anticipates this will be an area of considerable growth
going forward.
Revenue from the Industrial (mining and manufacturing)
sector grew by 8.5% over the period, with growth of 6.9% to Financial Services
clients and 6% in Public Services.
Looking ahead, Gijima said compound annual growth rates of
up to 9.5% are predicted for the ICT services market through to 2015, compared
to the 8.5% growth experienced over the last year.
Maintain, Support and Upgrade, Managed Services and Hosting
services contributed significantly to this growth with 26.4%, 26.1% and 19.0%
growth, respectively. The growth going forward is being driven by an increasing
optimisation drive across the economy, prompting the outsourcing of non-core IT
activities with the view to drive down cost.
"The convergence of IT and Telecoms, along with the
rapid upgrades and refreshing of technology, is also driving the IT growth. The
mobility wave should not be ignored, which is also being heavily influenced by
executives adoption along with Bring Your Own Device philosophies being
increasingly adopted across enterprise," it said.
Gijima's organisational restructure has been completed, with
phase two commencing in the second half of the year. This will focus on
creating an organisation that aligns with the core competencies required to
deliver on Gijima's objectives and vision.
"Gijima is building a strong mobility capability, which
is supported by the recent announcement of its Apple System's integration
partnership, along with its relationship with MobileIron, a mobile device
management company. These relationships along with internal development of
mobility offerings will ensure that Gijima establishes a strong presence in the
market where it concerns mobility offerings for enterprise," it concluded.
