The firm recorded a 9 per cent decline in operating expenses as turnover remained flat/FILE
NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 8 – Longhorn Publishers has posted a 29 per cent increase in net profit for the 2017 full year to Sh134 million up from Sh104 million in 2016.
Chief Executive Simon Ngige attributes the increase to decline in operating expenses and improvement in other markets that include Zambia, Malawi and Rwanda that brought 30 per cent of revenue.
“The group’s financial position remains strong, having generated Sh244 million from operating activities. This enabled the company to reduce its short term borrowings by 30 percent. Similarly, the company’s sales from Uganda, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Rwanda, and Senegal contributed to 30 per cent of the group’s turnover as compared to 20 per cent contribution in the previous year, this is evidence that our focus on geographical diversification continues to pay off,” he stated.
The firm recorded a 9 per cent decline in operating expenses as turnover remained flat.
Point of focus will be on digital business which will be the future of the firm.
“Our diversification into digital products, reference books and tertiary books enabled us to minimise the reliance on primary school text books, mitigating potential risks around the changes in the Kenya school curriculum. Our sales of digital products have more than doubled in the previous financial year. We have developed proprietary eLearning platforms and digitized over 300 products including Longhorn eBooks Store, Longhorn eLearning Platform, Kamusi Kuu ya Kiswahili and Kiswahili ya Karne ya 21 applications which are now available worldwide on various digital platforms,” he explained.
The firm plans to spend Sh200mn to digitise books in digital strategy.
“Digital will constitute at least half of all sales made in the region in the next two years, and Longhorn is ready to seize that opportunity,” he stated.
Going forward the firm expects 50 per cent of their sales to be outside of Kenya as the firm plans to expand across Africa.
“The new markets that we are thinking of through the distributor model will be Namibia, Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe Ghana and Nigeria,” he stated.
