Antonie Roux, CEO of M-Web, says the online service provider is closing the gap towards profitability.
Speaking to ITWeb yesterday, Roux stated that M-Web`s B2B e-commerce initiative, CommerceZone, has moved R500 million through its doors.
Once famous for losing almost R1 million a day, Roux says the company`s expenditure has decreased while its income has on the whole increased. As M-Web is part of the JSE-listed Naspers group, Roux could not comment on official financial figures, but says doing real business is easier, "now that there is sanity in the market".
As part of its savings drive, Roux says any operation under the M-Web umbrella that misses targets for two quarters in a row will face the axe. M-Web`s travel service got the chop on Monday.
"There is no doubt that M-Web has been put through its paces," says Roux. "We have moved from being the brainchild of the Naspers board of executives in the mid-1990s into a full-scaled, mature operation of over 800 employees in the early-2000s."
M-Web is not faring as well as it once did at wooing new subscribers. While Roux says churn has not increased, subscriber numbers have levelled out at 250 000. He partly blames Absa`s free Internet offering for this slowdown, as well as a tough economy.
Despite the freeze in subscriber growth, the company now claims 1 300 000 unique visitors to its mweb.co.za portal each month, up from its mid-year tally of 850 000.
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