Nawras suffers 13.5% decline in net profit in nine months to end-September

Nawras reported that total revenues for the first nine months of 2013 increased by five per cent to OMR149.2 million (US$387.5 million). The increase in revenue was driven by data and fixed revenues, offset partially by SMS.

EBITDA for the nine months to end-September grew by 4.1 per cent to OMR71.5 million, driven by revenue growth.

As of September 30, total net profit amounted to OMR23.1 million, down 13.5 per cent compared to OMR26.7 million last year. The operator stated that despite higher EBITDA, net profit was affected by higher depreciation due to the investment in network modernisation.

Total customer numbers grew by 10.9 per cent year-on-year, or 231,644, to 2.36 million, with the fixed service customer base growing by nearly 61 per cent to 61,090 from 38,018 a year earlier. The mobile post-paid customer base was up 5.3 per cent year-on-year to 187,163 customers at the end of September, and in the year to date the mobile prepaid customer base increased by 10.4 per cent to 2.11 million.