UAE telco du hikes interim dividend after solid H1-2025 profit gain

Dubai: Half-year profits for du, the UAE telecom, shot past 20% year-on-year to Dh1.44 billion from Dh1.18 billion, with mobile subscriptions and demand for its high-speed 5G-enabled networks worked well on the numbers.

du has also confirmed an interim dividend of Dh0.24 a share - this is 20% higher than what the DFM-listed company paid same time last year.

du first brought out interim dividends in 2013 and through the years has been fairly regular with it.

On DFM, the stock is at Dh10, with the year-to-date showing a 33.5% gain.

For H1-25, the revenues came to Dh7.75 billion, an increase of 8%.

In the second quarter alone, du’s net profit was Dh727 million, higher by 25.1%, and for a margin of an impressive 18.6%. Revenues during the April to June period were Dh3.9 billion, up 8.6%, which du says reflects the ‘successful execution of our diversified revenue strategy’.

Revenues from mobile services were Dh1.7 billion during Q2, while ‘other revenues’ fetched another Dh1.1 billion. This was boosted by ‘higher inbound roaming and interconnection revenues—reflecting our expanded mobile base’. There was also a ‘rebound’ in handset sales after a drop in Q1-25. (Fixed-telephony revenues rose by 10.1% year-over-year to Dh1.1 billion.)

All of which sets du up for some serious play in the cloud and hyperscale data centre category.

“We launched the UAE's first sovereign hyperscale cloud platform and made notable advances in developing our hyperscale data centre in collaboration with Microsoft, securing our position as leaders in secure, AI-ready digital infrastructure,” said Fahad Al Hassawi, CEO of du.

For full-year 2025, the company forecasts revenue growth of 6%-8% and EBITDA margin of 45-47%.

"We have updated our full-year outlook to reflect our confidence in the robustness of our business model and our ongoing ability to achieve sustainable, profitable growth," the CEO added.