MUSCAT, JULY 26 - Ooredoo Oman has announced a 1.7 per cent increase in revenues for the first half of 2017, which climbed to RO 135.0 million compared with RO 132.8 million in 2016. The growth is driven by increases in both mobile and fixed data revenue, the telecom operator said in a statement.
EBITDA for the first half of the year stood at RO 73.2 million compared to RO 73.4 million for the first six months of 2016. EBITDA for 2017 was marginally impacted by higher customer acquisition cost associated with increase in customer base which has grown by 9.3 per cent in total and 23.2 per cent for fixed.
Net profit for the first half of 2017 was RO 13.7 million compared with RO 24.9 million in the same period of 2016. Net profit for 2017 is impacted by increase in royalty fee from 7 per cent to 12 per cent, increase in income tax rate from 12 per cent to 15 per cent as well as higher depreciation cost due to investment in network modernisation.
Total number of customers grew by 9.3 per cent, to be 3,105,580 at the end of the first half of 2017 compared to 2,841,472 for the same period of 2016. The fixed service customer base increased by 23.2 per cent to 98,919 customers in Q2 2017 compared to 80,292 in the same period 2016. The mobile post-paid customer base grew by 6.0 per cent to 225,114 customers compared with 212,352 customers in Q2 2016. The mobile pre-paid customer base for Q2 2017 increased by 9.1 per cent to 2,781,547 customers compared to 2,548,828 customers for the same period last year.
Commenting on the results, CEO of Ooredoo Oman, Ian Dench, said: “We are pleased with our revenue growth in the second quarter of 2017, matching the increase in customer demand for mobile and fixed data. The increase in our customer base also reflects our award-winning customer experience which we continue to innovate and build upon, across all of our touch-points. The market leading Ooredoo Oman self-care app continues to grow in popularity with over 370,000 downloads, affirming our aspiration of digital customer experience leadership.
For our corporate customers, our “Business Reach plan” offers new opportunities and we stepped up security for businesses by providing protection against DDoS attacks. We will build on this good second quarter with the teamwork of the entire Ooredoo family, whose contribution is instrumental to our continuing success and growth.”
Business Reporter
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