Zak Calisto’s Karooooo posts $15.71 million in profit in H1 2022, 12-percent lower than previous year’s figures

Karooooo Limited has posted R231 million ($15.71 million) in profit for the first half of its 2022 financial year.

Karooooo is a leading global mobility SaaS platform that maximizes the value of automotive and workflow data by providing real-time data analytics solutions for smart transportation to over 1.3 million connected vehicles.

When compared to last year’s figures, the Singapore-based company suffered a 12-percent decline in profits on the back of a significant strengthening of the South African rand in the first half of 2022 compared to the first half of 2021.

The negative impact of the strengthening of the rand coupled with the one-off IPO costs of R85 million and a 31-percent surge in operating expenses pressured Karooooo’s profits downward to R231 million ($15.71 million) from R262 million ($17.82 million) in the first half of 2021.

Of the R85 million ($5.78 million) in IPO costs, R36 million ($2.45 million) was expensed — R26 million ($1.77 million) in Q4 2021 and R10 million ($680,412) in Q1 2022 — while R49 million was set off against the share capital.

As of press time, Oct. 15, shares in the company on the NASDAQ Exchange were trading at $32.98 per share, 2.14-percent lower than its opening price of $33.51 per share this morning.

Despite the headwinds in its operating environment in the first-half-year period, it achieved 18-percent growth in revenue driven by a 20-percent increase in its subscriber base to 1,408,609 subscribers.

Calisto, founder and CEO of Karooooo, said the company delivered a resilient performance in the first half of 2022 despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the social unrest experienced in South Africa in July 2021 and currency headwinds.

He noted that even in the face of these challenges the company’s growth expectations for 2022 remain unchanged.

Calisto founded Karooooo in 2001 with an initial focus on stolen vehicle recovery services in South Africa. The company now manages the operations of Cartrack, a wholly-owned subsidiary that offers real-time mobility data analytics solutions for smart transportation.

Since 2001, Karooooo has strategically grown into a leading international provider of smart transportation management and analytics, serving customers in 23 countries across five continents and supporting more than 1.4 million subscribers worldwide.

Following its IPO this year, Calisto retains more than two-thirds of the company’s equity, or 20,419,294 issued ordinary shares, making him the majority shareholder.