Amman, August - Batelco Chairman Shaikh Hamad Bin Abdulla Al Khalifa announced that Batelco Group has reached over 7 million customers across its operations at the end of Quarter 2. He added however that intense competition in the Bahrain market contributed to lower Group net profits.
Following a Board Meeting last month, Batelco’s Chairman announced for the half year 2010, a net profit of BD46.7 million ($124 million) against gross revenues of BD170.7 million ($453 million).
Earnings per share were 32.4 fils and the Board of Directors approved an interim cash dividend of 20 fils per share, as it has done for the last 3 years.
“Overall our gross revenues did not grow in the first half of 2010 predominantly due to the entry of the third mobile operator in the Bahrain market. Reduced market share for mobile and broadband services in Bahrain and strong price erosion adversely affected our revenues and profits. We also expected lower profits due to funding the growth of our start-up operation in India,” explained Shaikh Hamad.
Batelco Group Chief Executive Officer, Peter Kaliaropoulos, stated that across Batelco’s Operations the customer base grew to a total of 7.3 million customers.
Mobiles customers grew by 47% to 6.88 million in H1 2010 compared to 4.68 million in the same period last year. For the same period, broadband services grew by 54% to 230,600 customers and fixed lines declined by 5% in Bahrain to 192,000 lines.
“We continue to diversify our operations and customer base,” said Mr. Kaliaropoulos.
“Whilst our operating revenues were flat we managed costs effectively and delivered an EBITDA margin of 43.5% and an EBITDA of BD74.3 million, a decline of 4% versus the same period in 2009,” outlined Mr Kaliaropoulos.
“Whilst our Operating Profit of BD54.1 million in H1 2010, is 4% below the 2009 figure, our Group Net Profit of BD46.7 million is 14% below H1 2009 results as it includes share of losses for our associated companies and profits from overseas investments. We have welcomed further competition in Bahrain and increased our mobile customers but the Bahrain market is now ex-growth for revenue and profits,” added Mr. Kaliaropoulos.
“Strong cost reductions and cash flow management are key priorities for our Bahrain Operations whilst ensuring we remain innovative with new services and customer care,” said Mr. Kaliaropoulos.
The Group’s 96% owned subsidiary in Jordan, Umniah, is on track for another successful year thanks to a 14% increase in the number of mobile subscribers with their customer base now standing at 1.70 million. Sabafon, in which the Group holds a 26.94% equity investment, delivered revenue growth and their mobile subscriber base increased by 22%, to 2.98 million.
“We continue to explore suitable M&A opportunities in North Africa, India and Asia Pacific regions, with our preference being companies that have recently begun operations or are already established and still growing,” the Batelco Group CEO elaborated.
Batelco Chairman Shaikh Hamad added that Batelco’s expansion strategy is fuelled by the challenging Bahrain telecommunications environment with its saturated market.
Batelco, in H1 2010 also entered into contracts to further expand its wireless infrastructure including a BD14.5 million ($38.5 million) Mobile Network Expansion project with Ericsson which will see Batelco’s technological capability further enhanced to tackle a number of needs such as providing or enhancing coverage and quality of service in newly developed or remote areas as well as ensuring readiness for LTE (Long Term Evolution), often branded as 4G.
To address the heavy demand on the Blackberry service due to the massive growth in subscriber numbers, Batelco completed a major enhancement to its Blackberry platform to deliver up-to 17 times faster connection over Batelco’s Global Network. Furthermore, Batelco has also introduced Blackberry services for its prepaid SimSim customers.

About Batelco:
Batelco Group, listed on the Bahrain Stock Exchange, is the leading integrated communications’ provider in the Kingdom of Bahrain and a company of reference among the region’s key telecommunications players for innovation and customer experience.
Batelco serves both the corporate and consumer markets in the most liberalised and competitive environment in the Middle East Africa region. It delivers cutting-edge fixed and wireless telecommunications services to its customers in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen, Egypt and India.
The Batelco Group of companies offers end-to-end telecommunications solutions for its residential, business and government customers in Bahrain on Next Generation, all IP fixed and 3.5G wireless networks, MPLS based regional data solutions and, GSM mobile and WiMax broadband services across the countries in which it operates.

This news release has been distributed by Bidaya Corporate Communications on behalf of Umniah.
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