Thursday, May 03, 2012
(This story was originally published Wednesday.)
DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones)--Oman Telecommunications Co. (OTEL.ON), or Omantel, Oman's biggest telecommunications operator, on Wednesday posted a 13% rise in first-quarter profit to 29 million Omani rials ($75.3 million) in its preliminary results as it added more subscribers.
The first-quarter result was in line with the OMR29 million that analysts at Cairo investment bank EFG-Hermes had penciled in. Muscat-based Gulf Baader Capital Markets had forecast OMR28 million profit.
The company's total customer base by the end of March rose 11% year-on-year to 3.6 million subscribers. In the Omani market alone, Omantel ended the quarter with 60% market share. Subscribers in the domestic market rose 13% by the end of March to 2.7 million "mainly from the mobile business," Omantel said in an emailed statement.
Omantel also operates World Call in Pakistan.
"This growth is principally attributed to the growth of domestic mobile retail revenues by 10% as we continued to lead the market and grow our mobile network market share from 54.7% the first quarter of 2011 to 60% in the first quarter of 2012," said Omantel Chief Executive Amer Awadh Al Rawas in the statement.
Revenue for the first quarter decreased by 0.4% to OMR111.1 million, according to Omantel, from OMR111.5 million a year earlier.
Omantel said in the statement that the marginal decline in the revenue figures is mainly attributed to the one-off revenue of OMR9.046 million for the capacity sale in the first quarter of 2011. Excluding this one-off, Omantel said its revenue for the quarter would be up 8.4% mainly on domestic mobile retail revenue.
Omantel's main competitor in the local market is Nawras, a unit of Qatar Telecom.
Omantel shares closed flat on Wednesday at OMR1.304.
-By Shereen El Gazzar, Dow Jones Newswires; +971 444 61684; Shereen.elgazzar@dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
03-05-12 0355GMT
