A R300 million-turnover entity serving over 19 000 business clients across ten and counting South African cities.
That’s how Dr Marius Oberholzer of Huge sees the near-term future of the newly-enlarged entity following Board approval of a Business Combination involving Huge Networks and Huge Telecom.
Dr Oberholzer has been appointed to lead the new entity aimed at achieving scale, unlocking revenue growth and accelerating the delivery of increased shareholder value while preserving as many jobs and roles as possible.
“The primary goal right now is to establish a stronger, more capable business with a combined turnover of some R270m and grow that beyond R300m in the very near-term with March 2023 as the focus,” Dr Oberholzer says.
The organic growth-focused business combination will immediately yield various operational benefits, bringing together the commercial, go-to-market and distribution capabilities of Huge Telecom with the products, services and technical capabilities of Huge Networks.
The Covid-19 pandemic has served as a catalyst for change in terms of user behaviour.
“Our newly-expanded products and services catalogue that includes the flagship and proprietary Huge Integrated Telephony Solution (VoIP integrated with GSM) is the best way to respond to the post-pandemic changing voice and data needs of businesses and consumers,” explained Dr Oberholzer.
The combined entity’s expanded national presence now includes Gauteng, Western Cape, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Escort, East London, Gqeberha, Bloemfontein, Kimberly and George.
On the rationale behind the combination; the executive team at Huge Management continually monitors Huge Group’s investments, the market and industry trends and it became apparent that significant synergies existed between Huge Telecom and Huge Networks.
It was concluded that the interests of shareholders would be best served by combining the businesses to unlock the latent potential that exists between the two organisations.
Huge Telecom commenced operations in 1993 and established a national footprint and a substantial customer base supported by sophisticated operations, systems and processes which all underpinned its provision of telephony services using prevailing GSM technologies.
Huge Networks was established in 1998 as a provider of network-agnostic, wholesale voice and data services that, specifically, encompass a market-leading product and service offering that combines Internet connectivity, secure data networks and carrier-grade voice services on broadband networks.
Significant synergies exist. For example, Huge Networks has a robust National Operating Centre (NOC) based in Cape Town, Centurion and East London supporting its existing products, services and product development. The NOC can easily incorporate Huge Telecom products and product development.
“The combined team is positive, motivated and excited to get on with the task of building a stronger national brand supported by a robust national footprint and underpinned by outstanding technical expertise,” concluded Dr Oberholzer.
