Du Q1 net profit up 62 per cent

UAE telco Du saw its first quarter revenues increase by 20.1 per cent to reach AED2.4 billion (US$653 million).

Mobile revenue increased 21.8 per cent to AED1.9 billion, while mobile data revenue grew to 15.5 per cent of mobile revenues.

Net profit before royalty increased 61.8 per cent year-on-year to AED666 million.

While net profit growth was healthy due to revenue growth combined with increased operational efficiency improvements, quarter-on-quarter growth in net profit before royalty in Q1 2012 was positively impacted by an exceptional impairment of AED47 million in Q4 2011 and one-off gains of approximately AED30 million from favourable settlements in Q1 2012. Provisioning for royalty continues to be made at 50 per cent.

The company added 320,600 mobile customers in the quarter to end-March, bringing its mobile customer base to 5.5 million. Of the subscribers added, 50,400 were post-paid mobile customers, which represented 7.5 per cent of Du’s mobile customer base at the end of the period. Fixed line subscribers increased to 545,300; up 2.7 per cent or 14,000 subscribers quarter-on-quarter.

At the end of March, Du’s share of the UAE mobile market stood at 46.7 per cent, based on the data published by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority.