PETALING JAYA: Pertama Digital Bhd
is optimistic about returning to the black in financial year (FY) 2024.
Group chief executive officer Saifullah (Saify) Akhtar said that after the disposal of its entire stake in its China-based textile subsidiary (Be Top Group Ltd) in August 2022, the company is reclassifying its business as a technology business, which opens up more opportunities in attracting new business, especially from the government and local start-ups.
"Our numbers are improving in terms of lower debts based on our existing businesses.
"Currently, we are also looking at other profitable businesses and some acquisitions where we are still negotiating and in due course, we will make the announcement,” he said after the company’s 38th Annual General Meeting (AGM) here today.
Saify said since the company pivoted into the digital space three years ago after acquiring 51 per cent stake in Television Airtime Services (TAS) in 2020, the company has been looking into upscaling its existing businesses.
This includes Dapat Vista (M) Sdn Bhd that operates MyPay Coin Conversion, eJamin, MyPay Mobile, MySMS and MyPay Payment Gateway. Dapat is a 80 per cent subsidiary of TAS as at Dec 31, 2022.
He said the company is looking into the government digitalisation market and given that the government is the largest business in any country, it is an opportunity to serve hundreds of government agencies as every citizen needs to interact with the government.
"We want to accelerate that process which is sustainable. Recently our eJamin won an award for our innovation product from the Prime Minister’s Office.
"We want to push for our innovation products into other government agencies, and if we are successful, the prospects are good for us,” he said.
Saify noted that the company would also form collaborations with local start-ups, among others, to offer services in helping the government’s digitalisation, for example, in the delivery of using cloud storage, to store files and ease the submissions of documents.
"There are so many things that we can look at in order to digitalise. The digitalisation effort that we need in Malaysia can’t be undertaken just by the public sector but also by the private sector.
"More importantly, stakeholders (from top to bottom level personnel) are convinced of the applications or initiatives and would implement it in every level in their agencies,” he added.
Pertama Digital fell into the red, with a net loss of RM1.77 million for the first quarter ended March 31, 2023 against a net profit of RM5.08 million a year ago, hindered by higher operating expenses.
Its quarterly revenue plunged 73.6 per cent to RM1.35 million from RM5.11 million previously. - Bernama
