[2008-09-02]  AccessKenya Beats Forecast with Profit Growth Rate of 62% in First Half 2008; confirms strong progress for key strategic initiatives including Access@Home
AccessKenya Group, Kenya’s first publicly listed ICT company and leading Corporate Internet Service Provider, today announced its results for the half year ending June 2008 with revenue and profit growth comfortably exceeding its forecast range of 50 – 60%.

Revenues for the six months ending June 2008 were K Shs 682 million – a 76% increase on the K Shs 387 million achieved in the same period in 2007. Profit after tax before extraordinary items rose by 62% to K Shs 104 million – a very significant increase on the K Shs 64 million achieved in the same period in 2007.

“We are delighted to announce that revenues and profits for the half year ending June 2008 have strongly exceeded our original target growth rate of 50 – 60%, with revenues growing by 76% and profits by 62% compared to the same period last year. The core corporate internet business has powered through the months of political upheaval and delivered strong growth in customer numbers, Average Revenue Per User and net profit, all at the same time as delivering ever increasing levels of speed and value for money to our customers.” commented Jonathan Somen, Group Managing Director.

“We are now purchasing over 300mb of international capacity which we believe makes us the largest buyer of international capacity in Kenya. While this capacity is highly utilized by day, it is far less used at night and this excess night capacity will form the “backbone” of guaranteed high speeds for our home broadband customers who are already being installed on our $3.5 million Alvarion Wi-Max network with 35 base stations around Nairobi and Mombasa. We expect to see significant traction in the sales of Access @ Home in the second half of this year as residential customers enjoy levels of high and guaranteed speed and reliability backed up by corporate style customer service not seen before in Kenya. The Group is strongly focused on the growth of Access @ Home, our core “Broadband Max 2” service and Outsource IT and believe we are very well positioned for further strong results in the second half of 2008” concluded Somen.
Source: (c)company website 2008