Financial Highlights
Total turnover increased by 50% to $1,225.2 million (1H 2000: $814.9 million)
Total operating profit before goodwill amortisation up by 40% to $122.0 million (1H 2000: $86.9 million)
Profit on ordinary activities before goodwill amortisation and exceptional items grew by 68% to $159.6 million (1H 2000: $95.1 million)
Weighted average number of shares in issue increased by 61% to 1,212 million (1H 2000: 754 million) and basic earnings per share before goodwill amortisation and exceptional items up by 29% to 8.4 cents (1H 2000: 6.5 cents)
Net cash inflow from operating activities of $43.0 million (1H 2000: $51.4 million)
Commenting on the results, Jeremy Ord, Executive Chairman said:
Dimension Data has been able to deliver good organic growth despite evidence of a slowing global economy. This is due to the Group’s global capability, differentiated positioning and our customers’ increasing recognition of the strategic importance of the network which is fuelling continued growth in demand for managed services. Global demand for robust communications infrastructures is being enhanced by a need for managed services to deliver high infrastructure and application uptime and to manage and integrate multiple technology channels.
In the past six months the Group made further progress toward realising its vision of becoming the first of a new category of systems integrators with competence in both connectivity and integration. Dimension Data’s focus on providing the building blocks that support and enable e-commerce, positions it well to capitalise on two of the fastest growing technology sectors – Network Services and e-business application integration. The global rollout of a consistently defined and branded range of leading edge service offerings, combined with the rebranding of regional business units under the Dimension Data brand, has started to yield positive results in terms of the Group’s ability to attract new regional and multi-national customers.
Sentiment around the IT services environment has, in recent months, been impacted by increasing uncertainty around the reduction in Telco capex spending, retrenchments and stock write downs in a number of the large technology vendors. We nevertheless remain confident that Dimension Data’s unique differentiated business model positions it in markets where the consequences of these trends are diluted, and believe that the Group’s prospects and pipeline for the majority of our businesses going into the second half of the year, remain sound.
