Thursday, Apr 26, 2012
(This story was originally published Wednesday.)
BEIRUT (Zawya Dow Jones)--Kuwait's National Mobile Telecommunications Co. (NMTC.KW), also known as Wataniya Telecom, said Wednesday its first-quarter net profit plunged 90% on the year to 28.3 million Kuwaiti dinars ($101.8 million) from KWD285.1 million, although the company said the profit would have risen without a one-off gain.
Wataniya said last year's first-quarter net profit included a fair-value gain of KWD265.5 million derived from revaluing its interests in Tunisia's mobile operator Tunisiana after it increased its stake in it to 75% from 50%. It added that the 2011 first-quarter net profit was KWD19.6 million, the fair-value gain excluded, which means that the 2012 first-quarter net profit in this case jumped 44% on the year.
The mobile operator, a unit of Qatar Telecom, said in an emailed statement that its earnings per share plummeted to KWD0.56 from KWD5.69 in the first quarter of 2011.
"We have started the year 2012 with a solid performance, further improvements of our international markets and maintaining our domestic business in times of a competitive environment," Sheikh Abdullah Al Thani, the company's chairman, said in the statement.
"Despite intense competition, increased regulatory fees and challenging economic settings, Wataniya Telecom has seen revenue grow 6.2% and EBITDA by 5.7% compared with the same period in 2011."
First-quarter revenues rose to KWD180.3 million from KWD169.8 million in the same period of 2011, the statement said.
Total assets grew 2.3% to KWD1.46 billion at the end of March from KWD1.43 billion a year earlier, the company said earlier Wednesday in a separate statement posted on the Kuwait bourse website.
Wataniya's shares ended flat at KWD2.460 in a higher market.
-By Shikrallah Nakhoul, Zawya Dow Jones; +961 1 985757; shikrallah@zawya.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
26-04-12 0339GMT
