Batelco acknowledges challenging environment affected Q1 results

Batelco today announced gross revenues of BD80.81 million (US$214.4 million) and net profit of BD17.46 million for the first quarter of 2011.

Across the Batelco Group of companies the telco grew its customer base to 9.8 million, adding 600,000 customers during the three months to end-March 2011, and up 54 per cent year-on-year.

“Our gross revenue of BD80.81 million declined four per cent against Q410 whilst net revenues of BD63.07 million were flat, quarter-on-quarter,” commented Batelco Group CEO Peter Kaliaropoulos. “An increase in revenue by Umniah and QualityNet were offset by competition, regulation and the recent events in the Bahrain market. Our operating profit of BD23.27 million declined by 9.4 per cent against Q4 2010 due to increases in operating expenses and staff costs. However our share of losses from our Indian joint venture, resulted in a net profit of BD17.46 million, a 16 per cent drop versus Q410.”

Batelco’s operations outside Bahrain contributed 37 per cent of revenues and 27 per cent of EBITDA in Q111.

Batelco is confident it will cross the 10 million subscriber figure by the end of April, four months behind its original goal of end 2010, set out in 2005.

Batelco in Bahrain maintained 45.6 per cent market share in mobile with a total of 745,000 customer accounts, a decline of three per cent versus Q410. In Yemen, Sabafon’s mobile subscriber base has grown to reach over 3.6 million customers while at S Tel in India; the subscriber base has risen to 2.82 million at the end of Q111.

Umniah in Jordan has grown its mobile customer base to reach 2.2 million subscribers. Atheeb’s Go brand for broadband and voice services in Saudi Arabia delivers services to over 116,000 customers, representing a 50 per cent rise in their customer base over the course of the past year.