Nawras today reported that total revenues for second quarter amounted to OMR55.5 million (US$144 million), up 10.6 per cent year-on-year. EBITDA for the quarter came in at OMR30.1, up 27.5 per cent, while net profit was up 32 per cent year-on-year to OMR9.9 million.

For the first half of 2014 revenues increased by 10 per cent to OMR108.2 million, driven by increases in both fixed and mobile data revenues as well as voice revenue offset by a decrease in SMS revenue.

EBITDA for H114 stood at OMR56.7 million, up 22 per cent year-on-year.

Net profit for the period amounted to OMR 18.7 million, up 23 per cent year-on-year, driven by higher EBITDA partially offset by a higher depreciation cost due to network modernisation.

Nawras’ total number of customers grew by 7.7 per cent in the half, to 2.47 million, with fixed line customers growing by nearly 13.4 per cent year0n-year to 64,192 customers, and mobile post-paid customers growing by 2.6 per cent to number 190, 531 customers. Mobile prepaid customer numbers grew by eight per cent to 2.22 million as of June 30.

Mobily has posted a six per cent increase in its H1 revenues as it announced the interim financial results for the period ending on June 30, 2014.

Revenues for the first six months totalled SAR12.227 billion (US$3.26 billion), while gross profit for the second quarter amounted to SAR3.088 billion, up four per cent.

Q214 gross profit margin increased to 52 per cent from 50 per cent a year earlier, and was a result of Mobily’s improved revenue mix.

Q214 EBITDA margin stood at 35 per cent, down from 39 per cent a year earlier, and 36 per cent in Q114.

Net profit in Q214 came in at SAR1.312 billion, down 19 per cent year-on-year, and six per cent quarter-on-quarter. The reduction in net profit was attributed to writing off SAR338.7 million of net profit for Q214 that had been recognised in net profit in Q1.

Data revenues totalled 39 per cent of overall revenue for the first six months, up from 27 per cent a year earlier.

Vodafone Qatar reported that revenue in Q214 to June 30 amounted to QR 585 million (US$161 million), with EBITDA amounting to QAR159 million, up 61 per cent year-on-year. ARPU for the period stood at QAR131, up 6.5 per cent year-on-year, with net loss being reduced to QAR27 million, an improvement of 68 per cent over the same quarter in 2013.

The cellco counted 1.354 million subscribers at the end of the period, up 18 per cent year-on-year

Etisalat Group announced a healthy revenue and profit increase in its Q214 results, attributing the boost to its acquisition of a majority stake in Maroc Telecom.

Consolidated revenue for the quarter amounted to AED12.6 billion (US$3.43 billion), a 27 per cent increase year-on-year. Net profit was AED2.51 billion, also up 27 per cent.

At the end of the second quarter Etisalat counted 182 million subscribers, up 27 per cent on the 143 million at the end of the same period in 2013.

The consolidation of the 53 per cent stake in Maroc Telecom in May was a major contributor to the double-digit subscriber growth, Etisalat said.

Maroc Telecom generated AED3.3 billion in revenue during the second quarter, up 5.6 per cent year-on-year. It ended the period with 38.4 million subscribers.

A share purchase agreement was struck in May for Etisalat to sell Atlantique Telecom – its wholly-owned subsidiary which has operations in Benin, Central African Republic, Gabon, the Ivory Coast, Niger and Togo – to Maroc Telecom.

The US$650 million deal was conditional on the conclusion of Etisalat’s acquisition of the Maroc Telecom stake and is expected to close during the third quarter.

As well as Morocco, Maroc Telecom includes operations in Mali, Burkina Faso and Mauritania.

Etisalat also has East African operations, in Tanzania and Sudan, part of an international business that now covers 19 markets.

Revenue from international operations increased 64 per cent, contributing 46 per cent of the total consolidated revenue.

Etisalat secured a 3G licence in Pakistan for US$147.5 million during the period, contributing to an 84 per cent group capex increase during Q2 (to AED3.4 billion).

BlackBerry has named Marty Beard as Chief Operating Officer, effective immediately. As the new COO, Beard is responsible for cross functional organisations, including marketing, BlackBerry 10 application development, customer care and quality.

Most recently, Beard was chairman and CEO of LiveOps, a provider of cloud applications for customer service. Prior to joining LiveOps, Beard was president of Sybase 365, a mobile messaging and mobile commerce services unit, and held a series of executive positions including SVP of marketing. Prior to Sybase, Beard worked at Oracle as VP of Oracle Online, its e-Commerce service unit. In his role at Oracle, he was responsible for leveraging the web to improve customer sales and support.

He replaces Kristian Tear, who left last year shortly after John Chen took over as CEO.