VITA'S 'BYTE' INTO TELSTRA PAYS OFF

VITA Group (ASX: VTG) has shown the great payoff of aligning with Telstra, and focusing on a particular business segment, through its full year results today.

Vita's Telstra branded retail business underpinned its revenue and profit boost, for the board to be able to pay a fully-franked dividend of 7.98c per share, up 72 per cent from last year.

Underlying profit after tax grew 76 per cent from the same period last year to $18.1 million, from a revenue of $601.4 million, up 34 per cent from last year.

Revenue from the Telstra-strong telecommunications division of the business saw the biggest growth, increasing 44 per cent to $541.5 million.

The communications and electronics company's CEO, Maxine Horne, says Vita is increasingly focusing on the small-to-medium (SME) business segment to build scale.

"We are executing on our clearly-defined strategy and seeing earnings growth from the investments made in recent years," says Horne.

"We continue to focus on multiple horizons of growth [including] the optimisation of the retail business; building scale in the SME business segment through Telstra Business Centres, contact centres and outbound sales teams; and laying foundations for growth in Vita Enterprise Solutions servicing larger customers."

Vita added five Telstra stores and four Telstra Business Centres in the financial year, taking its network to 100 Telstra stores and 16 Telstra Business Centres.

As Apple continues to increase its market share, Vita has seen a depreciation in its Next Byte stores. Part of the company's computing division, the revenue for these stores declined 20 per cent over the year to $59.9 million.

This shows a changing of the hands, as integrated services seem to take a lead on products in the communications sector, something which Vita recognised last year when its full year loss was attributable to Next Byte for performance. 

Horne says Vita's alignment with industry leader Telstra sets the company up well for future growth.