Profitable year for Square One

Square One Solutions achieved headline earnings of R8.32 million for the year to end-December, compared with a loss of R1.61 million the year before.

Chairman Garth Coetser says a 9.6% increase in turnover to R174.2 million was achieved despite the drop in IT and corporate spending on the traditional goods and services Square One supplies.

The increase in revenue and profit was mainly due to the authentication and security team realising the first of the group's identity verification biometric solutions.

"Our Special Authentication Projects division took a key role in the consortium-driven implementation of a voter registration system in an African country holding its first truly democratic election," Coetser says.

The division has also been working with local partners on several projects that he says should realise good revenues and profits this year and beyond.

"The traditional distribution side of the business now represents far less of the group's revenue and contribution, in line with our vision to become a solutions-based operation. This side of the business made a considerable effort in 2002 to manage its relationship with the channel, striving towards better business processes, from sales through to debt management."

The group, which remains a provider of Xerox colour printers, has also secured the distribution for complementary products from Epson.

Coetser says Square One has not yet realised the investment and full potential in mid-range storage demands, although it sees good growth prospects for the current year.

"The company now is well positioned to address the potential it sees in biometric-based authentication and other security solutions. These will be our key focus areas in 2003.

"Square One's prospects outside the South African borders look set to grow at a highly promising rate."