The Daily Update: 21 July

The latest update from the JSE and NYSE over the past 24 hours.

South Africa

The Foschini Group Limited- Dealings in securities

• A director of Foschini Retail Group sold 30 638 shares for a total value of R2 867 276.98.

Anglo American Platinum

• Anglo Platinum has declared a dividend of ZAR 1 200 cents per share, which will be paid on the 28 August.

Tiger Brands Limited

• The CFO of the company has resigned effective 31 December 2023.

Vodacom Group Limited- Trading update

• Group revenue increased by 36.9% to R35.7 billion, largely driven by the acquisition of Vodafone Egypt and favorable rand depreciation against international currencies.
• Group service revenue grew by 43.8%, or 9.8% excluding Vodafone Egypt.
• South Africa service revenue increased by 3.9%, supported by the contract segment, fixed, and financial services.
• International service revenue grew by 23.8%, driven by data revenue growth and a weaker rand.
• Vodafone Egypt's service revenue increased by 27.6% in local currency, mainly due to significant growth in financial services revenue.
• Financial services revenue increased by 46.2% to R3.0 billion, with US$1 billion per day transacted on mobile money platforms.
• Mobile money platforms, including M-Pesa, processed US$360.6 billion over the last twelve months, up 5.8%.
• VodaPay, the super-app, reached 6.7 million downloads and launched free deposits and added 'send money' and cash-out services.
• Vodacom South Africa declared the 'Most Reliable Network' and 'Best In Test' ahead of competitors by independent benchmarking organization 'umlaut.'
• Group revenue from new services (financial and digital services, fixed, and IoT) accounted for almost one-fifth of total revenue, on track to reach the target contribution of 25-30% over the medium-term.
• Revenue from international operations grew by 23.2% to R7.4 billion, supported by currency gains and strong growth in M-Pesa and data revenue.
• Smartphone penetration across international operations reached 33.2%, highlighting the opportunity for innovative handset financing options to accelerate adoption.

Mr Price Group Limited- Trading update

• Retail sales and other income (RSOI) grew by 21.4% to R8.4bn during the period, including the recently acquired Studio 88 Group. Excluding Studio 88, RSOI increased by 1.2% to R7.0bn.
• The retail sector experienced soft demand due to factors such as loadshedding, rising debt costs, and inflation, which negatively impacted household disposable income and indebtedness.
• Sales performance for April was slow, but improved as power backup solutions were extended to all stores by the end of June 2023.
• The Apparel segment's retail sales grew by 29.5%, while the Home segment decreased by 1.7%. The Telecoms segment saw an 11.0% increase in sales.
• South African retail sales grew by 20.9%, and non-South African corporate-owned store sales increased by 35.9%.
• Online sales contributed 2.4% to retail sales but decreased by 5.3%.
• The store footprint increased by 58 new stores, reaching a total of 2,756 stores.
• Cash sales constituted 87.8% of total retail sales, growing by 26.4%.
• The growth outlook for the remainder of 2023 is likely to remain muted due to economic conditions, including loadshedding and limited disposable income improvement.

Aveng Limited- Trading statement

• Aveng expects an earnings loss per share and a headline loss per share for the year ended 30 June 2023, in comparison to earnings per share of 106 cents and headline earnings of 252 cents per share in the prior year.

The U.S.

Meta

• The number of daily active users on Facebook's Twitter Clone dropped to 13 Million this week down 70% from its July 7th peak.