Nation Media full year profits rise tenfold
Stephen Gitagama during a past event. He has been appointed as Nation Media Group Chief Executive Officer replacing Mr Joe Muganda, who had served in the position from July 2015. NMG PHOTO
What you need to know:
- During the period, NMG, which has operation across East Africa and the region’s leading news organisation saw profits grow from Shs1.46b due to strong sales and advertising revenues, which supported a 12 percent growth in total revenue to Shs231.9b ($65.7m).
Nation Media Group (NMG) has recorded a ten-fold increase in net profit to Shs14.8b ($4.2m) in the year ended December 2021, signaling strong recovery of business from Covid-19 disruptions.
During the period, NMG, which has operation across East Africa and the region’s leading news organisation saw profits grow from Shs1.46b due to strong sales and advertising revenues, which supported a 12 percent growth in total revenue to Shs231.9b ($65.7m).
The company also announced a resumption of dividend payments, proposing a payout of Shs45.84 per share.
Mr Wilfred Kiboro, the NMG chairman, said the company hopes to improve dividend payout as a result of accelerated growth expected to be realised from the digital transformation journey that has been accelerated during the post-pandemic to cushion the drop in newspaper circulation.
During the period, digital revenues increased by 20 percent, accounting for 6 percent of the group’s turnover.
Pursuing transformation
“2021 was a very challenging year. We were still experiencing the impact of Covid-19 but our focus was on recovery while pursuing transformation agenda,” Mr Stephen Gitagama, NMG chief executive officer said.
NMG is banking on its large online presence and a revamped digital plan to grow sales.
The Group is working to leverage huge online presence to monetise the online audiences into sustainable revenue streams.
“Going forward, the bulk of the revenues will come through going digital. The legacy media like print will still remain for a few years but distribution will be mainly digital. We hope to reduce reliance on print gradually to not more than 25 percent,” Mr Kiboro said.
With 50 percent of Ugandans having access to the Internet, online content consumption has been gaining currency, which NMG hopes to seize as it grows into a modern digital content publisher to wean it off legacy media.
The Group’s broadcast revenues grew from 20 to 22 percent, cutting over reliance on print revenues, which declined from 75 percent to 72 percent.
Nation Courier reported a 13 percent growth in revenue.
The company will place greater focus on growing reader revenue from content delivered digitally, including exploring new revenue streams in the events and technology space.
Revenue focus areas
Nation Media Group, which has operations in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda will place greater focus on growing reader revenues from content delivered digitally, while expanding into other revenue streams such as events and technology.
