Indosat acquisition helps increase Qtel’s subscriber base four-fold

Having been forced to delay the announcement of its earnings for the second quarter for a number of weeks due to the effort to consolidate the results of recently acquired Indosat into its results, Qatar Telecom (Qtel) this week reported a 102 per cent growth in revenues in the first half of the year to end-June. Consolidated group revenue amounted to QAR8.11 billion (US$2.2 billion), while EBITDA increased 92 per cent year-on-year in the first half to QAR4.04 billion. This implies an EBITDA margin of 49.8 per cent for the period.

Qtel has a stated ambition to emerge as a top 20 telecoms operator by the year 2020

Qtel’s net profit attributable to shareholders stood at QAR1.18 billion for the first half, an increase of 33 per cent year-on-year.

The telco reported that Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Algeria, Oman and Indonesia (post acquisition) now represent its six largest markets by revenue, contributing 32 per cent, 19 per cent, 15 per cent, 10 per cent, eight per cent, and seven per cent of group revenue respectively.

The number of subscribers on Qtel’s networks increased drastically through acquisition, reaching 51.3 million at the end of June, up from just 9.6 million a year earlier.

With respect to quarterly performance, Qtel reported consolidated revenue amounting to QAR4.56 billion for Q208, up 78 per cent year-on-year, while its EBITDA margin slipped marginally from 50 per cent in Q207 to 49 per cent in Q208.

Net profit attributable to shareholders amounted to QAR654.5 million in Q208, up 59 percent from the same period in the previous year.

In Qatar, the telco reported revenue growth of 21 per cent for the half to end-June of QAR2.61 billion, and counted over 1.4 million mobile subscribers.

In Oman, Qtel’s Nawras operation reported revenues amounting to QAR609 million for the first half of 2008, up 63 per cent year-on-year. Nawras’ market share has grown from strength-to-strength to reach 44.4 per cent share at the end of June.

Qtel reported that Asiacell in Iraq counted 4.8 million subscribers at the end of June.