Econet recently put out their financial results for the year ended 28 February and one of the questions many had was whether these results would include any detail regarding the performance of Cassava Smartech and they do but there is one caveat. The results only cover Cassava’s first 8 months and not the full year.
In those 8 months, Cassava Smartech has posted revenues of ZWL$327 979 000, an improvement over the $257 752 000 the company posted for the year -ending February 2018 – when the company was still a subsidiary of Econet.
It’s not much of a surprise that Cassava Smartech is already raking in significant revenues as the technology business comprises of Steward Bank Limited, Steward Health, EcoCash, Econet Insurance and Econet Life. These companies bring in a pretty consistent revenue stream once you consider their business models and how integral they are to the daily lives of many Zimbabweans.
In those 8 months, Cassava has also proven to be profitable, posting a profit of ZWL$94 995 000. If it wasn’t for the inclusion of the Cassava Smartech results, the Econet results would make for depressing reading as Cassava results are included in the overall Econet profit of ZWL$106 358 000. This means outside of Cassava operations, Econet made profits of ZWL$11 363 000.
Cassava Smartech will be posting their full-year results separately later this year, so it becomes more clear which businesses are contributing to the companies revenues and profits:
CSZL will report separately on its performance for the 4 months from 1 November 2018 to 28 February 2019. EWZL, which owns 20% of CSZL has elected to do equity accounting for CSZL.
Econet Finacial Results
I’ll also be very interested to see just how well the startup side of Cassava (the Vaya’s and Akello’s) is doing in terms of traction and profitability.
