By Pratap John
Chief Business Reporter
Vodafone Qatar has earned revenue of QR39.2mn in its first six months up to September, the company said yesterday.
Qatar’s second telecom service provider said it acquired a 7% market share up to September. However, Vodafone customer base reached 250,000 in October, which is 15.5% of the total population of the country.
In just one month - in September – the company earned revenue of QR22.2mn.
Vodafone is the only company listed on Qatar Exchange whose financial year runs from April 1 to March 31.
Vodafone Qatar CEO Grahame Maher said the first six months of the financial year have been filled with many great achievements for the company.
“We have made impressive progress in building our network to cover 99% of the Qatar population in under 12 months and our customer base has grown way beyond our expectations.
“Due to our global buying power and low cost structure locally, we have been able to build an extremely efficient operating model. This model has contributed to ensuring we are on target to deliver against our annual budget, with an earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) loss of QR156.2mn in the half year up to September.
“We were incorporated as a company in June 2008 and since then we have incurred operational and capital expenditure setup costs that are required for our future customer growth of over the next 10 years. The financial results are in line with our annual budget and the targets outlined in our business plan and IPO prospects,” Maher said.
He said in the IPO prospectus Vodafone explained that it expected to be ‘EBITDA positive’ in the year ending March, 2011 and dependant on the needs of the business.
“We expect to be able to pay dividends after March 2013, when we will be cash flow positive on a cumulative basis. The results of our first three months of our customer operation give me comfort in confirming these previous forecasts,” Maher added.
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