By Pratap John/Chief Business Reporter
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Sheikh Abdullah and Dr Marafih: ‘enhanced strategic focus |
The net profit earned by the company in Q1, 2010 was QR1.2bn, but Qtel said it was ‘positively impacted’ by a one-off favourable decision on the royalty regime, which totalled QR554mn in 2010.
The revenue (of QR7.5bn) earned by the Qtel Group in Q1 was 16.5% more than the same period last year.
As of March 31 the Group’s consolidated customer base stood at 75.6mn (Q1, 2010: 66.4mn), representing growth in customer numbers of 13.9%.
The Group’s Ebitda for the same period increased 17% to QR3.6bn (Q1, 2010: QR3bn). Ebitda margin remained robust throughout the period at 48% (Q1, 2010: 47%).
Commenting on the results, Qtel Group chairman Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohamed bin Saud al-Thani said: “We are pleased with the operational performance of the group with normalised net profit attributable to Qtel shareholders increasing 15.7% year on year.
“We have started this new year with the same energy and commitment with which we ended the last. The broad-based strengths of our international group remain evident and it is these strengths that have helped us to deliver a further quarter of strong growth in the first three months of 2011.”
At a group level, Qtel invested in assets and innovations designed to maintain market leadership, with one of these ways being through new strategic partnerships.
During the quarter, the Qtel Group announced new partnership agreements paving the way for new innovations in social media, consumer broadband and entertainment.
Qtel Group CEO Dr Nasser Marafih said, “Thanks to our ability to move quickly when attractive opportunities arise, we are well positioned to capture the high growth offered by emerging economies.
“With an emphasis on efficiencies, our mature markets have delivered good returns; our operations in competitive markets continue to efficiently manage the increasing competition; and our emerging markets remain rich in opportunity, both for customer growth and service innovation.
“We are enhancing our capabilities in a number of key service areas for the future, including digital services and social media, to ensure that we continue to meet the requirements of our valued customers today and in future.”
In Qatar, Qtel’s customer base stood at 2.4mn in the first quarter of 2011. Qtel saw a successful quarter in Qatar driven by robust results in the consumer sector and a number of key agreements with significant corporate clients.
The enhanced strategic focus on the mobile broadband and entertainment segments are also opening new market opportunities and delivering positive returns.
Qtel’s ongoing programme of investment in Qatar’s communications infrastructure saw a number of important milestones in the first quarter of 2011.
The major upgrade and expansion process for the Qtel Data Centre, which began at the start of 2010, was completed, increasing capacity by 300 percent, with an enhanced range of enterprise services.
A number of leading Qatari organisations signed agreements to migrate their core systems to the Qtel Data Centre as a result of this expansion programme.
In addition, the trial phase of the Fibre-to-the-Home programme was a success, and more than 510km of fibre had been laid-out in residential areas by March 2011, positioning the company for the commercial launch.
Qtel’s Qatar revenue increased by 4.6% year-on-year to QR1.4bn (Q1 2010: QR1.4bn). Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) performance during the quarter showed an increase of 8.9% year-on-year to QR776.2mn (Q1, 2010: QR712.8mn).