Dubai: Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company PJSC (du) on Tuesday reported a year-on-year 3.2 per cent increase in revenues to Dh3.05 billion in the first quarter of this year, with strong contributions from the mobile data and fixed line segments of the business.
“This quarter we delivered against our strategy of focusing on ‘quality growth’ as evidenced by the 20.5 per cent rise in fixed revenue to Dh616.1 million, the 9.7 per cent increase in EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation) to Dh1.30 billion and the 6.9 per cent rise in net profit before royalty to Dh925 million,” said Osman Sultan, du’s chief executive officer.
The telecom operator’s net profit after royalty fell 0.6 per cent to Dh487.1 million compared to Dh490 million a year ago due to a 16.8 per cent rise in royalty fees this quarter.
Du needs to pay 12.5 per cent of its revenues and 30 per cent of net profit earned in 2015 as royalty fees to the government. Etisalat pays 35 per cent of its net profit and 15 per cent of its revenues as a royalty to the government. In 2016, both telecom operators will pay same royalty on profits.
Du’s mobile customer base fell 0.9 per cent to 7.48 million. Within this, mobile postpaid customers grew 15.2 per cent in the quarter to 825,000 compared with 716,000 in the first quarter of last year.
“It is worth noting that we have been rigorously applying the ‘My Number, My Identity’ campaign requirements over the past nine months. While we support this very worthwhile initiative, we have witnessed an impact in 2015 to our subscriber base,” Sultan said.
