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| Tombleson and Portz seen with other officials as they announced the results yesterday |
Qatar’s second mobile service provider earned about QR5mn Ebitda (earnings before interest taxes depreciation and amortisation) profitability in the second half, according to John Tombleson, acting CEO of the company.
Vodafone Qatar’s financial year begins in April and runs up to March, unlike other listed companies which follow January-December format. It has otherwise reported a loss of QR601mn for the year ended March 31, 2011, according to a Reuters report.
It also reported a fourth-quarter net loss of QR143.9mn, compared with a loss of QR156mn in the year-earlier period.
Two analysts polled by Reuters forecast a quarterly loss of between QR111mn and QR138.1mn.
Although it had reported Ebitda losses of QR32mn in the first half, the positive cash earnings in the subsequent half helped the company’s annual Ebitda to show an 88% improvement.
Revenues more than doubled to QR934.9mn with customer base growing 63% to 756,767 mobile customers, who are predominantly in pre-paid segment. Its mobile market share increased to 27% and 45% of population in Qatar use Vodafone, said Michael Portz, its marketing manager.
Average revenue per user (Arpu) increased 14% over the year to QR115. However, in the fourth quarter, there was a dip in Arpu, which Vodafone officials said, was due to “aggressive” pricing.
Highlighting that the company has spend QR1.4bn since its inception until March 31, 2011; he said it will be spending another QR392mn this year, of which 40% would go towards fixed line and broadband services and the remaining 60% towards improving the infrastructure relating to post payment billing and installing new cell sites.
In the long term, the capital expenditure is expected to stabilise around 8% of revenues from financial year 2013 onwards. Vodafone Qatar is also increasing the number of permanent cell sites and replacing temporary cell sites with permanent constructions.
Vodafone money transfer, which was launched to Philippines in November last year, will be extended to India and its sub-continent by this year, Portz said.
Mobile penetration in Qatar – which has a population of 1.7mn – is about 169%, so winning high-value customers and population growth will be the firm’s main growth drivers, Tombleson was quoted by Reuters as saying. “We are budgeting for 3mn people over the next eight years – more people will grow the pie,” he said.
“There are three pre-requisites for high value customers – one is post-paid, another is number portability and the most important is the quality of the network.”
Vodafone plans to offer number portability by January 2012 and post-paid tariffs for individual customers by next April, according to Reuters.
Vodafone Qatar previously said it would not pay a dividend before May 2013, Tombleson said, but this could be put back to 2014.