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Bahrain’s telecom firm Batelco, which is part of the S Tel joint venture, has said the group’s operations continue to be affected by the expected losses in establishing and growing the Indian joint venture, S Tel, and the intensity of competition in Bahrain.
The company, which announced its first quarter results on Wednesday, said the group’s share of losses from the Indian joint venture, resulted in a net profit of $ 46.3 million (17.46 million Bahraini dinars), a 16 per cent drop versus the same quarter of last year.
However, S Tel’s subscriber base swelled to 2.82 million at the end of Q1 FY11.
Batelco Chairman, Mr Shaikh Hamad Bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, announced gross revenues of $ 214.4 million (80.81 million dinars) and net profit of $ 46.3 million (17.46 million dinars), for the first quarter of 2011, at a Batelco Group Board Meeting held on Wednesday.
“Across the Batelco Group of companies, we have grown our customer base to 9.8 million, a further 600,000 customers since Q4 FY10 and a 54 per cent increase since this time last year,” he said.
Mr Hamad said the group expects to complete a major upgrade of its mobile network expansion programme within weeks at an investment of 14.5 million dinars. Batelco Group Chief Executive, Mr Peter Kaliaropoulos, said the group’s Q1 results are consistent with market guidance.
“Impressive performances from our overseas operations have grown the Group’s customer base to over 9.8 million. We are confident that we will cross the 10 million subscriber figure by the end of April 2011, just four months behind our original goal of end 2010, set out in 2005,” he said.
Mr Kaliaropoulos said the Group’s growth strategy continues to be an area of priority. “We were pleased to receive acceptance of the non—binding offer made in collaboration with Kingdom Holding Company to acquire 25 per cent of Zain KSA, from the Board of Directors of Zain Kuwait and are proceeding with the process of due diligence.
We remain optimistic for a positive outcome for the Kingdom—Batelco Consortium in due course,” he said.
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