From left: Head of Investors and Shareholder Relations at Vodafone Qatar, Khalid Barzak, CEO of Vodafone Qatar, Kyle Whitehill, and CFO of Vodafone Qatar, Steve Walters, during the announcement of half-yearly results at Grand Hyatt Hotel yesterday. Shaival Dalal
DOHA: Vodafone Qatar yesterday announced its financials for the half-year ended 30 September 2013 and said that its revenue during the period has reached QR925m ($254m), up 33 percent year-on-year. The company reported a distributable profit of QR41m ($11.26m).
The results were announced at a press conference following the Board meeting chaired by Sheikh Dr Khalid bin Thani Al Thani, Chairman of the Board of Directors.
Present at the meeting were CEO of Vodafone Qatar, Kyle Whitehill, CFO of Vodafone Qatar, Steve Walters, and Head of Investors and Shareholder Relations at the company, Khalid Barzak.
Whitehill said the excellent performance of the company is the result of a combination of factors, including customer growth and an improving Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) which resulted in more than a doubling of EBITDA over the same period last year.
According to the latest figures, as on September, total number of Vodafone mobile customers in Qatar has reached to approximately 1.19 million witnessing a 27 percent increase compared to September 2012.
With this impressive growth of the customer base, the mobile ARPU of the telecoms service provider has increased by five percent to QR124. And the company has announced to double its investments on infrastructure including network upgrade, from the current 12 percent to 24 percent.
The earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) achieved at QR210m for the six months to September 30, registering a growth of 105 percent year-on-year.
As a result of good performance, the company has been able to reduce its net loss to QR160m for the six months to September 30 from QR240m in the previous period. The distributable profit of QR41m for the six months to September 30, compared to a loss of QR39m in the same period last year (distributable profits represent the net profits or losses of the company plus amortisation of the license, for the financial period).
Sheikh Khalid said: “During the first half of the year we saw excellent growth in our customer base due to the growing population and our attractive offers and services. This coupled with a healthy increase in our post-paid base has driven really strong top line performance.”
The Peninsula
