Learn Africa records N2.39b turnover

Learn Africa Plc records N2.39 billion turnover in the 2020/2021 business year, introduces Learn Africa eReader, others.

Learn Africa Plc (formerly known as Longman Nigeria Plc), has recorded a turnover of N2.39 billion for the year ended 31 March 2021, a decrease of 16 per cent from $2.87 billion posted in 2020.

The company also posted a profit before tax of N282.08 million and an operating profit of N161.08 million after accruing N121 million as taxes.

The board of directors of the company has therefore approved a dividend of 15 kobo for each 50 kobo ordinary share, which translates to N115.7 million and subject to appropriate statutory deductions.

Chairman, Board of Directors of Learn Africa Plc, Chief Emeke Iwerebon, explained that during the period under review, business organisations in Nigeria had to cope with the recurring challenges of insecurity, paucity of foreign exchange, deplorable road networks, epileptic power supply and multiplicity of taxes and levies.

He added that all these were further compounded by COVID-19 global pandemic that strained healthcare facilities, disrupted school activities, and paralysed the entire national economy.

Iwerebon added that the lockdown and other measures instituted by the federal government to contain the virus caused a steep fall in demand for goods and services.

“These measures had a disproportional negative impact on the education sector, as the federal government ordered the closure of all schools across the country to minimise the spread of the virus.

“Although, the COVID-19 restrictions were partially lifted during the latter part of 2020, the educational ecosystem, as we knew it, had been irreparably disrupted, leaving many businesses in palpable fear of a resurgence of the pandemic.

“Apart from the effects of the pandemic on our operations, you may recall that we promised in my last report, to drastically scale down on credit transactions. That promise was kept ! We will continue to sustain this new and obviously healthier cash policy in all our future trading cycles.”

As part of efforts to expand its product portfolio, Iwerebon stated that the company, which is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, has developed an App for the deployment of its e-contents while making remarkable progress on the complete digitization of its content, conversion of key titles into videos, and animation of nursery titles.

“The App, known as Learn Africa eReader, combines both offline and online functionalities and it is now available for download on the Google Play Store for Android and Apple devices’’.

“We are excited about our growing capacity to take advantage of sales opportunities for the electronic formats of our products with the hope that they would make significant contributions to our turnover and profit in the near future’’.

“We have also collaborated with our partners to produce two excellent dictionaries that have been released into the Nigerian market namely, Learn Africa Student’s English Dictionary; suitable for intermediate readers and Learn Africa English Dictionary; appropriate for advanced learners. We are very optimistic that they will be a huge commercial success and will satisfy our customers’ expectations for high quality and affordable dictionaries.”