In what has been a whirlwind journey for Rain, growing rapidly and garnering a large, loyal following for fixed wireless broadband connectivity. The mobile network operator is now worth R18 billion, a jump of more than R1.5 billion in a year, according to the latest annual results of shareholder African Rainbow Capital (Arc) Investments.
The company’s investment in Rain has increased in value by almost 10 percent during the period, despite its overall shareholding decreasing slightly over the period. Arc justified Rain’s substantial growth based on a further R56 million investment and R265 million fair value gain.
Rain hit a major milestone this year – it achieved a total of R1 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, and depreciation for its financial year ending February 2022. “This is regarded as a significant achievement as it achieved break-even in the February 2021 financial year,” Arc said.
Arc said the operator has continued to deliver well on both 4G and 5G product sales. “Demand for these products has been sustained throughout and post the easing of Covid-19 restrictions, which has seen employees return to their offices for work,” the company explained. “The business participated successfully in the government-initiated spectrum auction that saw Rain acquire 2 x 10MHz in the 700MHz band and 20MHz in the 2.6GHz band for a total price of R1.43 billion. The utilisation of the additional spectrum is expected to positively impact Rain’s cash flow.”
The additional radio frequencies should see Rain become even more competitive, and hopefully curb some of its operating issues. Many users have complained about drops in signal and much slower speeds than advertised.
Rain’s overall valuation stood at roughly R17.951 billion by June 2022. This is an increase from its R16.644 billion value in December 2021, and R16.357 in June 2021.
