Datatec Ltd Sa Unsp/Adr (DTTLY) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning and welcome to our FY26 interim first half results. As per our usual format, I'll be providing a summary followed by the CFO's presentation on the financial results and then followed by my operational review of the divisions and finally the concluding slides. Our results summary. Slide 4. We had an exceptionally strong H1 performance. All the group's divisions delivered strong year-over-year increases, with higher profits, better margins and good working capital management. These results translated into a staircase of improvement down the P&L, with strong operational leverage. Gross sales grew by 9%, gross profit close to 12%, adjusted EBITDA by 22% and underlying earnings per share jumped by 43%. The strong profit improvement and enhanced dividend payout ratio from last year led to a significant increase in our interim dividend up from 4.3 to 10 cents US dollars, an increase of 133%. As seen with the reporting of many tech companies, an AI-led generational upgrade to more advanced computing is beginning. It is hard to predict how long this will take or what impact it will have, but if it's like previous technology cycles, it will be evolutionary and take time to mature. The ubiquity of AI will eventually augment all uses of technology and will drive faster networking, distributed data centres, more local computing and increased cyber threats. If we can continue to adapt and operate in the right areas of our industry, then the future is very bright for all our businesses. The profitable progress across our divisions is well anchored and the fundamentals are strong and sustainable. A remarkable transformation in our business mix. Not so many years ago, the vast majority of what we sold was mainly hardware with attached services driving just over 10% of th...