UNIMET SYSTEMS

What UNIMET SYSTEMS does

Unimet Systems (Pty) Ltd is a South African smart metering and revenue management company incorporated in 2015 and headquartered at 25 Friedland Avenue, Cyrildene, Johannesburg. The company supplies and installs smart electricity, water, and gas meters and operates its proprietary SmartZone cloud platform to automate the billing and recovery of rentals, levies, and utility charges for property owners, landlords, body corporates, homeowner associations, commercial and industrial property owners, and municipalities. Its active footprint spans four South African provinces — Gauteng, Free State, KwaZulu Natal, and Western Cape — with end consumers (predominantly tenants) using Unimet's online portals to purchase prepaid tokens, view real-time consumption, and manage utility wallets.

Name

UNIMET SYSTEMS

Legal name

Unimet Systems (Pty) Ltd

Website

https://unimetsystems.co.za

Company type

Private

Founded year

2015

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Unimet Systems is a South African smart metering company that supplies electricity, water, and gas meters paired with its proprietary SmartZone cloud-based prepaid revenue management platform, serving property owners, landlords, body corporates, and tenants across four South African provinces.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Smart Metering and Revenue Management Software

NAICS

Totalizing Fluid Meter and Counting Device Manufacturing (334514), Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (51821)

SIC

Industrial Instruments For Measurement, Display, And Control (3823), Totalizing Fluid Meters & Counting Devices (3824)

akta.pro primary industry

Prepay Metering & Customer Payment Solutions (EUADAFAL)

akta.pro secondary industries

Metering Hardware & Field Services (AMI/AMR meters, endpoints, installation, maintenance) (EUANAIAA), Meter Installation, Exchange & Field Services (EUADAFAF), AMI/AMR Smart Meter Deployment & Operations (Head-End, Network & MDM) (EUAJACAD), Meter-to-Cash / Billing & CIS Integration for AMI (EUADAFAM), Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) & Smart Meter Analytics (Meter Data for NRW) (EUANAKAC)

Keywords

• Smart metering solutions
• Prepaid utility vending
• Revenue management platform
• Smart electricity meters
• Property utility automation

Headquarters

HQ city

Johannesburg

HQ country

South Africa

HQ region

Africa

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Personnel, Supply Chain, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Smart Meter Hardware Sales: Sale and installation of smart electricity, water, and gas meters. Meters operate in both prepaid and postpaid modes. Hardware sales represent a capital equipment revenue stream with pricing based on meter type (single-phase, three-phase, bulk supply) and size (20mm to 150mm).
2. Prepaid Token Vending Fees: Fees are deducted from each prepaid token purchase before the balance is applied to generate a token. Consumers can purchase tokens via the SmartZone online vending platform, EFT, direct ATM deposit, Visa/MasterCard, and SID-Instant EFT. Token delivery is via SMS and email within 30 minutes of payment confirmation.
3. SmartZone Platform / Subscription Fees: Property owners, landlords, and body corporates access the SmartZone platform for automated invoicing, billing recoveries, rental collection, tenant management, and real-time reporting. The platform is offered to clients as a managed service, with fees applied transparently to consumers through the platform.
4. Automated Billing Recovery Services: Automated recovery of rentals, levies, and utility charges (electricity, water, gas) on behalf of property owners and utility suppliers. System automatically allocates consumer payments to their profiles and generates invoices and reconciliations.
5. Channel Recovery Fees: Fees charged for the use of various payment and vending channels. Through SmartZone, consumers can view all fees applied. Service fees fall within industry averages with no additional hidden service fees.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion2 records

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core offering

UNIMET SYSTEMS supplies and installs smart electricity, water, and gas meters, and operates the SmartZone cloud-based automated revenue management platform that handles billing, vending, and recovery of rentals, levies, and utilities for property owners, landlords, and body corporates. The company enables prepaid and postpaid metering with remote switching, real-time consumption data, and nationwide token vending. Its offering integrates proprietary Dynamic PLC and LoRa RF communication technologies with STS-compliant meters to provide tamper-resistant, bi-directional metering management.

Product overview

UNIMET SYSTEMS offers a platform-plus-modules architecture centered on its SmartZone cloud-based revenue management system, complemented by two property-manager portals (Client Portal and Client Zone), a consumer-facing portal (Consumer Portal), and the Unimet Wallet sub-product for prepaid token management. The hardware portfolio includes Smart Electricity Meters (with Dynamic PLC and LoRa RF communication variants), Smart Water Meters, and Smart Gas Meters — all capable of operating in both prepaid and postpaid modes with remote switching. The software platforms handle automated billing, vending, payment processing (via PayGate and Ecentric Payment Systems integrations), debt recovery, and comprehensive financial/metering reporting. The hardware and software are tightly integrated: SmartZone communicates directly with the smart meters, enabling real-time data access, remote relay switching, token auto-vending, and demand-side management.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• SmartZone Cloud Platform
• Smart Electricity Meters
• Smart Water Meters
• Client Zone
• Consumer Portal
• Unimet Wallet

Quantifiable outcome

• 15,045,456 records and transactions processed
• +5 more outcomes

Named customers7 records

Segments5 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration3 records

AI capability3 records

Feature11 records

Scale indicators5 records

Recent moves5 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Broad incumbents

• Kamstrup: Danish manufacturer of smart electricity, heat, water and gas meters with integrated metering services and AMI platforms. Competes on metering hardware, communication technology and data analytics; broader portfolio than Unimet but no direct Southern African property-management focus.
• Landis+Gyr: Swiss-headquartered global metering and AMI/grid-management vendor with established presence in African utilities. Overlaps with Unimet on smart electricity meters and head-end software, but at utility-scale rather than property-management deployments.
• Itron: Global leader in electricity, gas and water metering with AMI/AMI platforms, including in Africa. A broad incumbent with a far larger product portfolio than Unimet and the ability to bundle AMI with utility-scale software that Unimet does not address.

Regional players

• CBI-electric: South African low-voltage electrical products and metering manufacturer serving local utilities and property developers. Regional peer with similar South African market exposure but focused more on utility-grade metering than Unimet's landlord/cloud-revenue stack.

Others

• Ecentric Payment Systems: South African payment processor and existing Unimet integration partner (PayGate-adjacent acquirer). Adjacent rather than competing; comparable only as an enabling infrastructure provider in the same prepaid utility vending ecosystem.
• STS Association: Industry body that maintains the Standard Transfer Specification (STS) certification underpinning all Unimet meters. Comparable only as an ecosystem/standards participant that defines the open-protocol framework in which Unimet — and its competitors — operate.
• Eskom: South Africa's state-owned electricity utility and the dominant upstream utility supplier for much of Unimet's customer base. Not a competitor but a key ecosystem participant — Eskom's prepaid vending and credit-meter policies directly affect demand for Unimet's sub-metering services.

Direct peers

• Conlog: South African manufacturer of STS-compliant prepaid electricity meters and provider of prepaid vending solutions to municipalities and property owners. Most direct local competitor to Unimet on prepaid electricity metering in Southern Africa.
• EDMI: Singapore-based smart metering manufacturer serving utilities and property developers with electricity, water and gas meters plus head-end software. Closely comparable to Unimet in product breadth (multi-utility meters + managed platform) and target market (emerging-market utilities and landlords).
• Hexing Electrical: Chinese-headquartered smart metering vendor with significant African market presence, supplying STS/IEC-certified electricity, water and gas meters plus AMI platforms. Competes with Unimet on prepaid metering hardware and revenue-management software across emerging markets.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/unimet-systems

Compliance6 records

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles2 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about UNIMET SYSTEMS