A huge shout-out of congratulations goes to MiX Telematics on reaching the magical milestone of over 1-million subscribers across its combined global fleet and consumer customer base.
MiX Telematics was started in South Africa and is today a leading global SaaS provider of connected fleet and asset management solutions. The company is listed on both the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.
This significant milestone comes on the back of continued subscriber growth throughout the financial year which ended on 31 March 2023, and includes record subscriber growth in South Africa where the company’s local brands include Matrix and Beame.
“Closing out the fiscal year, we are exceptionally proud to have surpassed this significant milestone. We also expanded our adjusted EBITDA margin to 25% and continue to generate strong, positive free cash flow,” says CEO Stefan Joselowitz, who founded the company back in 1996. Total revenue for the year was R2.46-billion, up 10% year-over-year at constant currency. Recurring revenue made up 87% of that, of which close to half (46%) is non-Rand denominated.
Looking ahead, Joselowitz is confident that good growth will continue to be achieved. “Despite general uncertainties in the macro-economic environment, we remain confident that we have what it takes to maintain our balanced approach to growth while also delivering strong cash flow and profitability.
“I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank our teams across the globe for their commitment to delivering great products and services to our customers. Everyone has worked extremely hard to achieve this milestone and deliver this strong set of results,” he said.
Great memories
FleetWatch is proud to say that we have enjoyed a solid relationship with Stefan Joselowitz and the MiX Telematics team from its early days back in the 1990s. I recall one of the most innovative adverts we featured in our magazine was when Matric Vehicle Tracking, as the company was then known, added GSM to its GPS technology offerings. It was only printed magazines back then – no digital websites or social media.
The message Joselowitz wanted to get out to the market was that if criminals cut the GPS aerial thereby disabling any contact with the satellites for positioning purposes, the vehicle could still be tracked via the GSM network kicking in. Although just part of another day now, back then this was a technological breakthrough and to highlight this, I said we should use FleetWatch as a tool box – which we did.
Joselowitz and I were like two excited kids as we went about turning this whacky idea into reality. We tried to source the pliers locally but they were madly expensive so we contacted an overseas supplier (no, not in China) and we hit jackpot. Not only were they able to supply and ship the pliers (about 6 000 of them) to South Africa at a decent price but were also able to brand them by covering the handles with a sort of yellow plastic material with the Matrix Vehicle Tracking logo imprinted. A few weeks went by before they landed. They were perfect.
And now came the difficult part – gluing each set of side cutters to a page in our FleetWatch magazine. Remember, this was not a paper insert or a sample sachet of hand cream. It was a blinking set of side cutters. And it wasn’t as if they could just be plonked down and glued randomly onto the page. Each set had to be accurately placed with the open jaws positioned on each side of a photograph of a GPS aerial fitted onto the roof of a truck cab. And this had to be done to close on 6 000 magazines. The headline on the advertisement was something like: Cut the GPS aerial and we’ve still got you covered.
Bottom line is that it worked – apart from a few issues which arrived at their destination with the side -cutters removed. In those days there was still a decent postal service in South Africa but the thieves had begun to set the groundwork for what you find everywhere in South Africa today –rampant theft at all levels. The project made a huge impression in the market – the technology had arrived for truckers to beat the hijackers.
It was later that fleet management capabilities were added to the vehicle tracking and recovery services and today, MiX Telematics has customers in more than 120 countries globally and provides consumers and commercial fleets of all sizes with solutions for efficiency, safety, compliance, security and sustainability.
It’s been a long and successful journey for MiX Telematics with many breakthrough memories made along the way. For us at FleetWatch, it’s been a pleasure watching this company grow from a local entrepreneurial venture into a giant on the global telematics scene. A real South African success story. Congrats on your 1-million milestone.
