eBusiness Weekly
Enacy Mapakame
Powerspeed Electrical Limited says increased investments towards housing developments – albeit the challenging economic environment – is pushing demand for its products.
Through its Electrosales Hardware, Powerspeed is one of the country’s leading retailers of materials for construction through its, whose branches are all over the country.
Although the country experienced supply chain disruptions due to the Covid-19 pandemic coupled with the unrest in Eastern Europe, Powerspeed has maintained a solid volume performance driven by individual home developments among other projects.
Stakeholders in the real estate sector have also highlighted good business in the residential segment across the country driven especially by Zimbabweans in the diaspora while demand on the domestic market has also been high subsequently leading to more housing developments being undertaken in the country.
Demand also comes from refurbishments of existing structures across segments.
“In spite of all we face in the business everyday; we continue to strive for excellence in everything we do. We believe that the drive for sustained improvement will enable us to maintain our position as the pre-eminent hardware supplier in Zimbabwe.
“There is a national culture of investing in housing development or home improvement, which culture spurs demand for our products and services. We strongly support this culture, by offering a broad range of home improvement products, excellent value for money,” said chairman Dr Simba Makoni in a performance update for the year to September 30, 2022.
The group managed to service its customers although maintaining reliable supplies of product proved to be extremely difficult as suppliers in China have been severely affected by Covid-19 lockdowns and shortages of containers which disrupted shipping throughout the year.
Suppliers in South Africa have also been buffeted by power cuts, as well as widespread industrial action, particularly at Portnet.
But the group had strategies to keep the business going and cushion it against the challenges.
Dr Makoni said: “Our ability to procure product from the best global sources enables us to deliver excellent quality and price to our customers.
“We are relying on this strategy to increase our market share, despite the business environment being heavily tilted in favour of informal business.”
During the period under review, operating expenses rose to $5,9 billion from $1,5 billion in line with rising cost of goods and services.
As a result, operating profit rose to $1,4 billion from $294 million recorded in the previous year.
Profit after tax rose to $582 million from $154 million.
“We remained focussed on growing throughput, and building real balance sheet value, both of which have been achieved during the year under review,” said Dr Makoni
