Earnings per share (EPS) reached Dh0.24 representing an increase of 17% as compared to last year and 3% change from the first quarter of 2012.
The board of directors has also decided to distribute interim dividend of 25 fils per share to our shareholders starting from August 15th 2012.
“Building on the solid performance that the Group witnessed during the first quarter of the year, we have seen a year-on-year increase of 20.5 percent in operating profit and 17 percent net profit on the back of strong market development in Egypt, Benin, Gabon, Togo, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, a result of our on-going commitment to regional market development and growth,” Etisalat chairman Eissa al-Suwaidi said.
“Our strategy is clear. Following the industry trend to invest in overseas markets over the past decade, we are now focusing on creating value in high population, high growth markets such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Our network readiness in these markets coupled with the introduction of innovative data services, are key drivers to economic growth,” he added.
“Telecommunications connects the unconnected, gives banking facilities to the un-banked, offers access to education and provides healthcare provision to even the most remote, rural areas. In short, telecommunications is a growth engine and nowhere is that impact felt more sharply than in the developing markets of Africa and the Middle East where the multiplier effect on GDP is significant.”
“Over the past five years, the Etisalat Group has contributed approximately 5 percent to the UAE’s GDP, helping the Emirates rank 30th in the world according to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) World Economic Outlook Database issued in April 2012,” Ahmad Abdulkarim Julfar, group chief executive officer, Etisalat, said.
“By consolidating our successful overseas expansion strategy with the introduction of new future-proof network technologies such as FTTH and LTE, we are confident that this positive growth trend will continue.
“The Etisalat Group’s investment in the nationwide Fibre to the Home (FTTH) and Long Term Evolution (LTE – 4G) networks in the UAE, as well as the Group’s work in driving a national ICT policy, will be important factors in the economic growth of the nation.”
“We will continue to focus on providing innovative customer-oriented solutions that deliver a premium experience both in local and overseas markets to help transform the communities in which we operate and to accelerate social development and economic growth.
“The Etisalat networks provide the critical infrastructure backbone for future growth and our focus is on delivering innovative, integrated solutions such as mHealth and mCommerce, Machine to Machine (M2M) and cloud networking to help people, governments and businesses do things more efficiently, more quickly and at lower cost.”
Etisalat Group aggregate subscriber number grew to 172 million by end of June 2012 representing YoY growth of 22% and QoQ growth of 2%, thanks to the new product and services in the matured markets and by further market penetrations in growth markets.
Consolidated revenues during the second quarter of FY2012 reached Dh8.254 billion representing an increase of 4% in comparison to the same period of last year and an increase of 1% in comparison to the previous quarter of 2012.
Consolidated EBITDA grew to Dh4.261 billion representing a year-over-year growth of 16% while quarter-over-quarter it grew by 4%. EBITDA growth was mainly due to higher revenues and lower staffing expense, direct cost of sales and project based expenses. EBITDA margin improved to 52%, representing a 5.3 points increase in comparison to last year.