Brett and Mark Levy built Blu Label into South Africa's invisible infrastructure and it moves R108 billion a year

Most South Africans have never heard of Blu Label Unlimited. Most South Africans buy their electricity and airtime through it every month.

Brett and Mark Levy, the brothers who co-founded and co-lead the Johannesburg-listed technology group, have built something that functions more like infrastructure than a company. Blu Label Unlimited handles between 50% and 55% of all prepaid telecommunications distribution in South Africa and approximately 65% of all prepaid electricity distribution in the country. It serves 35 million customers monthly. Its annual turnover has reached R108 billion.

Brett Levy laid out those numbers during an EasyEquities webinar covering the group's interim results, drawing a comparison that captures the company's market position plainly. "We are the same for the prepaid industry in South Africa as what SAB is for the beer industry," he said.

The numbers are striking but the margin story is where Levy and his brother are now focused. With R108 billion in annual revenue and 35 million monthly customers, the brothers have made clear they are not chasing volume. "We don't need more revenue, customers or merchants," Brett Levy said. What they need is more from the revenue they already have. "An increase of 0.4% to 0.5% on our gross profit margins will double the profit of Blu Label Unlimited," he told the webinar.

On a normalised basis, stripping out the one-time costs tied to the Cell C restructuring, Blu Label generated revenue of R5 billion for the six months ended Nov. 30, 2025. Gross income came in at R1.353 billion, EBITDA at R535 million and net profit after tax at R389 million. Headline and core headline earnings reached R398 million. The company declared an interim dividend of 43.56 cents per share, its first in eight years, a signal from management that the restructuring chapter is closed and the business is now generating sustainable cash.

The Cell C process dominated the reporting period. Blu Label completed the unbundling and separate JSE listing of Cell C, the mobile operator it backed through a R5.5 billion investment in 2017 when the carrier was technically insolvent. Cell C has since reported positive equity of approximately R2.5 billion and a net debt ratio of 0.6 times for the same six-month period. Blu Label retains an arms-length trading agreement with Cell C as a separately listed entity within its stable.

Beyond the core prepaid distribution business, the Levy brothers have been building what Brett Levy calls their unicorn. BluEnergy, the group's energy division, has secured a trading licence from energy regulator Nersa, signed a 10-year revenue assurance agreement with the City of Ekurhuleni and a three-year deal with the City of Tshwane. The strategy targets municipalities that are buying electricity correctly from Eskom but failing to collect what they sell. Mark Levy has said 30% of electricity in South Africa is lost or stolen, a gap he estimates runs to tens of billions of rands annually. Blu Label's pitch is that it can help municipalities recover that revenue, using its embedded position across 95 municipalities and its Cigicell subsidiary's smart meter deployment capability.

The Levy brothers started selling televisions and car radios out of their high school in Delmas, a small East Rand town, after losing their father young. The company they built from that beginning now touches nearly every prepaid electricity and airtime transaction in South Africa. The next chapter is about what they earn from each one.