Cloud service and government driving MacTel as Sprint returns to profit | ZDNet

Macquarie Telecom has reported its seventh straight year of increasing earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (EBITDA) on Wednesday, with the company seeing the figure increase 13% to AU$74 million, and revenue increasing 7% to AU$285 million.

The increases were driven by MacTel’s cloud services and government segment, which saw revenue increase 21% to AU$131.5 million and EBITDA jump 25% to AU$36 million. Data centres contributed AU$39 million in revenue, up 10%, and had a 12% increase in EBITDA to AU$19 million.

MacTel’s traditional telecom sector experienced drops in sales and profitability, with revenue down 3% to AU$135 million and EBITDA down by the same percentage to AU$18.5 million. The company said this was due to pandemic restrictions which limit office-based connectivity.

All up, due to a 28% boost in depreciation and amortisation, the telco reported a 7% drop in net profit to AU$12.5 million.

Responding to demand, the company said it would be investing in its cybersecurity arm as well as staffing and technology for its data centres.

Last month, the company announced it would be spending AU$78 million to build the core and shell of its new 32-megawatt Intellicentre 3 Super West facility based at its Macquarie Park Data Centre Campus.

The new facility will also be home to a new Sovereign Cyber Security Centre of Excellence, which according to the company, will be responsible for monitoring and managing cybersecurity events around the clock. An initial 31 cyber specialists are expected to run and operate the centre by 2024.

See also: Best internet provider in Australia 2021: Top ISPs

Sprint Technology Solutions also reported its yearly result on Wednesday, and after another year of acquisitions said it had transformed from a small ISP into a full service technology company.

For the full year to June 30, revenue tripled to AU$104 million, EBITDA saw an almost four-fold increase to AU$8.6 million, and its net profit bounced from a AU$1.5 million loss to AU$1.16 million profit.

“Of the 13 most recent acquisitions, Spirit has successfully integrated 10 of 13 companies into the standard operating environment,” Spirit managing director Sol Lukatsky said.

“Spirit sits in the desirable position to participate actively in further industry consolidation across either of the IT and telco markets.”

As it moves to being a pure enterprise player, Spirit said it received multiple bids for its consumer assets.

“During the process, a group of potential acquirers of the consumer assets have enquired about the possible sale of additional infrastructure assets which Spirit may consider non-core,” the company said.

“The Spirit board is considering these requests and has appointed an advisor to review its options.”

Elsewhere, MNF Group reported it saw revenue rise 12% to AU$113 million and EBITDA increase 13% to AU$43 million.

“I’m particularly proud of the progress we have made against our strategy during the year, as we build MNF into a world-class software company,” CEO René Sugo said.

“We completed the divestment of parts of our direct business, aligning our business to wholesale revenue and the multi-billion-dollar opportunity we see ahead of us.”

MNF said it was restructuring into three segments consisting of communications platform as a service, telecom as a service, and unified communications as a service.

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