Ooredoo Group 9-month net profit jumps 16% to QR1.3bn

Ooredoo Group has posted a nine-month net profit of QR1.3bn, up 16% on the same period last year.

The significant jump in net profit was on the back of an increase in EBITDA and a more favourable FX environment.The telecom major earned QR22bn revenue in the first nine-months of 2019, although it represented a decline of 3% compared to the same period last year. The revenue was impacted by the industry-wide shift from voice to data consumption, a reduction in handset sales as well as macroeconomic and currency weakness in some of Ooredoo markets.The group customer base stood at 116mn in the third quarter, up by 1mn over Q2 mainly driven by new customers in Indonesia and Iraq.Ooredoo Group leads in 5G adoption, with live commercial 5G networks in Qatar and Kuwait and successful 5G testing in Oman. Network expansion continued to be a key driver of growth. Ooredoo Tunisia continued its 4G rollout with many new B2B clients connected.Ooredoo Myanmar deployed more LTE1800 sites to reinforce existing nationwide coverage, contributing to sequential growth in revenues for the quarter.In Algeria, 4G network expansion has continued with 64% of the population covered.On the results, Ooredoo Group chairman HE Sheikh Abdulla bin Mohamed bin Saud al-Thani said, “We are seeing very good progress with the execution of our digital strategy, positioning Ooredoo Group as the leading operator for innovative digital solutions across our ten markets of operations. At the same time, we continued to leverage group synergies and digitisation to optimise our cost base to deliver value in a fast evolving telecommunications landscape.“I am pleased to report a robust set of results during the first nine months of 2019 with Group net profit increasing 16% to QR1.3bn, compared to the same period last year. Growth was achieved despite challenges from industry wide shifts away from voice and SMS services, which means that our strategy is working and showing positive results.“We remain focused on the future with an emphasis on transforming our business to meet the digital needs of our customers and support the adoption of new technologies. In our home market in Qatar, we continued our 5G roll out, which will power the IoT (Internet of Things) services that we launched during the quarter.“Our leading network infrastructure continues to receive international acclaim, with Ooredoo Qatar winning four awards from Ookla for the best and fastest mobile network, best mobile coverage and fastest ISP.”Ooredoo Group chief executive officer Sheikh Saud bin Nasser al-Thani said, “Our focus on efficiency and digitisation continues to deliver positive results as we harness group wide synergies to deliver award winning products and services for our customers.“The results for the first nine months of 2019 reflect these initiatives with the improvement of our 9M 2019 EBITDA margin to 44% compared to 41% for the same period last year, supported by a good EBITDA growth of 4% to QR9.7bn for the first nine months of the year.“The continued recovery in Indonesia demonstrates that we have the right strategy in place to deliver growth in the new market environment. Indosat Ooredoo reported significant growth, with revenue up 11% and EBITDA up 37% for the nine-month period.“In Kuwait we are seeing good demand for our offerings with our customer base increasing 13% during 9M 2019, contributing to a 43% increase in EBITDA during the same period.“Ooredoo Tunisia reaffirmed its position as the number 1 telecom player by customer market share and increased revenues by 10% in local currency terms.”