Egyptian electronic payments company Fawry now has a market cap of over USD 1 billion. It achieved the feat during intraday trading, with its share price rising to EGP 22.69, giving the company a market cap of EGP 16 billion, or USD 1 billion, for the first time. With this, Fawry has become the first technology company in Egypt to attain a billion-dollar valuation.
Its stock price has increased by over 300% since its debut at The Egyptian Exchange in August last year. It had gone public with its shares priced at EGP 6.46 apiece.
Fawry had witnessed a surge in its stock price during the first two months after its public markets debut, but the price afterward remained almost flat until March, when the company saw it drop to one of its lowest points at EGP 7 per share. Since then, it has been on an upward trajectory—coinciding with the COVID-19 pandemic.
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The pandemic has created a surge in demand for electronic payment services, and as the leading player in Egypt, Fawry has benefited significantly from that, as evident from company’s financials for the second quarter.
Its revenue for the first half of 2020 has increased by 47% year-on-year to EGP 549.26 million (USD 34.41 million) from EGP 373.33 million (USD 23.38 million) for the same period in 2019. The net profit of the company in H1 2020 has increased by over 135% YoY to EGP 85.9 million (USD 5.38 million) from EGP 36.47 million (USD 2.29 million) in H1 2019.
Fawry is the only technology company on The Egyptian Exchange. It currently offers over 250 electronic payment services through its network of over 105,000 service points across 300 cities in Egypt, including ATMs, mobile wallets, retail shops, post offices, and small vendor kiosks.
USD 1 = EGP 15.93 at the time of writing.
This article first appeared in MENAbytes.