Dubai: Telecom operators in the UAE — etisalat and du — reported an increase in revenues for 2015 despite an economic slowdown.
Etisalat said in a statement on Sunday to the Abu Dhabi stock exchange that its preliminary full-year revenues rose by 6.61 per cent to Dh51.72 billion compared to Dh48.51 billion a year earlier.
Meanwhile, du’s preliminary full-year revenues rose by 0.8 per cent to Dh12.34 billion compared to Dh12.24 billion in 2014, as disclosed by the telco in a statement to the Dubai Financial Market (DFM).
Both the telecom operators, however, suffered a drop in full-year profits.
Etisalat reported a 3.95 per cent fall in 2015 full-year profit to Dh8.26 billion compared to Dh8.60 billion a year ago.
Whereas du reported an 8.05 per cent fall in profits to Dh1.94 billion compared to Dh2.11 billion in 2014, due to an increase of 20.6 per cent in royalty fees.
Sukhdev Singh, vice-president at market research and analysis services provider AMRB, told Gulf News that there are early indicators that 2016 would be a relatively “tougher year” for telcos in the UAE.
“On [the] one hand, one does observe general pressure on economic activities in the region that can impact the business growth for telecom sector as a whole, but du has an advantage that a lot of new real estate is getting completed in areas where du is the basic infrastructure provider,” he said.
Jyoti Lalchandani, International Data Corp’s group vice-president and regional managing director for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey, said that the growth for telco operators is going to come mainly from mobile data. “We are seeing a decline in fixed and mobile voice revenues,” he said.
Etisalat is expected to disclose its audited fourth-quarter results on March 9 and du on March 1.
