{"id":31333,"date":"2013-02-07T13:23:33","date_gmt":"2013-02-07T11:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=31333"},"modified":"2013-02-08T09:45:34","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T07:45:34","slug":"blue-label-telecoms-acquires-local-sms-firm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/telecommunications\/31333\/blue-label-telecoms-acquires-local-sms-firm\/","title":{"rendered":"Blue Label Telecoms acquires local SMS firm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blue Label Telecoms<\/a>, a distributor of pre-paid vouchers, has acquired a 51% stake in Panacea Mobile<\/a>, a bulk SMS solutions provider based in Cape Town.<\/p>\n

The terms and conditions of the deal were not disclosed, but the deal concluded late last year, Blue Label said.<\/p>\n

“We can confirm acquiring a 51% stake late last year in Panacea Mobile in order to support our bulk SMS distribution strategy,” the group said in a statement to BusinessTech.<\/p>\n

Panacea Mobile specialises in the entire mobile value chain, from the development of software through to the delivery of bulk SMS via its SMS Gateway.<\/p>\n

Blue Label Telecoms is expected to publish its interim results for the half year ended November 2012, on 20 February.<\/p>\n

Looking ahead at the groups’ half earnings report, expected out on February 20, investment analyst at Investment Solutions<\/a>, Chris Hart noted a spike in the group’s share price to an all time high, surpassing R9.00 on the JSE.<\/p>\n

Speaking on CNBC Africa’s Hot Stoxx show, he said:\u00a0“That spike might be a little too much at this stage. In other words, a bit on the coat tails of MTN<\/a> and Vodacom<\/a>. But I think it\u2019s in a good space. It\u2019s a good link to very strong businesses,” he said.<\/p>\n

However, Paul Theron<\/a>, equities asset manager and CEO of Vestact, highlighted potential problems for Blue Label Telecoms. He said that, while airtime has been a good seller in the past, there has been a lot of movement in mobile payments.<\/p>\n

Theron\u00a0said that, while many people\u00a0still used cash to purchase airtime, in the future that could change as people go online and buy airtime directly from their bank account.<\/p>\n

“This is a company that has done really well, its trading at an all-time high,” Theron said, adding that Blue Label was unlikely to stand still in terms of its technology evolution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a company that is in danger of being disintermediated, it\u2019s a simple as that,” opined Hart, before quickly adding that in an emerging market context, there would always be a need for the pre-paid services provided by Blue Label.<\/p>\n

“Its not under immediate threat, but the question is do you start seeing stinted growth, where the industry itself still is experiencing continued growth?” Hart questioned.<\/p>\n

In August Blue Label reported a modest rise in revenue to to R18.72 billion for the year ending May 2012, from R18.06 billion previously.<\/p>\n

Operating profit improved to R658.92 million, from R451.75 million in 2011, while headline earnings per share increased by 40% from 46.20 cents to 64.65 cents.<\/p>\n

Shares in the group have climbed steadily over the past year from an opening of R61.5 at the start of February 2012, and a low of R5.17, to a current trading price of \u00a0R8.84 by lunch on Thursday (7 February).<\/p>\n

More on Blue Label<\/h3>\n

Blue Label forks out $6.1m for Mexican subsidiary<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Blue Label ups profit, lifts dividend<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Blue Label ups profit, lifts dividend<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Blue Label Telecoms has acquired a 51% stake in Panacea Mobile, a bulk sms solutions provider based in Cape Town.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":5652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[1382,1859,3634,26,5140,5139,5141,213,5142],"class_list":["post-31333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telecommunications","tag-blue-label-telecoms","tag-chris-hart","tag-cnbc-africa","tag-headline","tag-investment-solutions","tag-panacea-mobile","tag-paul-theron","tag-sms","tag-vestact"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31333"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31341,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31333\/revisions\/31341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}