Manama: With subscribers base surged by 5% to 9.3 million, Batelco Group (Ticker: BATELCO), the international telecommunications Group with operations across 14 countries, on Wednesday said that its net profits were up 40% and 11% to $108.5 million in first nine months of 2014 representing a year-on-year compared to the third quarter of 2013 respectively.
The company said its financials were positively boosted by strong contributions from the Group’s international operations and the success of cost reductions programmes across the Group, particularly in Bahrain.
“We are very pleased with our progress over the first nine months of the year which have been marked by consistently strong cash generation and growing customer numbers across the Group,” Batelco Chairman, Shaikh Hamad Bin Abdulla Al Khalifa, said following a meeting of the Board of Directors at Batelco Group Headquarters.
“Throughout the period, we remained focused on evolving and diversifying the business and have made great progress in this regard with the delivery of new and enhanced services across our operations.”
“With the on-going focus on improving our competitiveness across all our operations by leveraging on the Group’s combined knowledge base and technical capabilities, we are confident that we can continue to evolve into a more recognisable name internationally while exceeding our promises to customers and meeting our commitment to shareholders,” he added.
“Innovation in our approach to serving customers is very important as well as the manner in which all our operations are managed. Our success is demonstrated by the overall growth of our subscriber base which has reached over 9.3 million customers, growth of 5% year on year. The majority of our operations performed very well with Bahrain and Umniah in Jordan delivering substantial growth in mobile numbers while Bahrain, Umniah, SURE Channel Islands and Dhiraagu in Maldives were the key contributors to growth of the Broadband customer base.”
For the nine-month period, the Group reported net profit of BD40.9M (US$108.5M) versus BD36.7M (US$97.3M) for the corresponding period of 2013, representing an 11% increase compared to the same period last year. Quarterly net profits also increased by a substantial 40% compared to the third quarter of 2013 and an impressive 53% compared to the previous quarter in 2014.
Profits for the period were boosted by the Islands portfolio and cost reduction programmes across the Group, with substantial savings realized in Bahrain. EBITDA for the period was BD111.4M (US$295.5M) representing a margin of 38%, compared to EBITDA of BD88.1M (US$233.7M) and a 32% margin for the corresponding period in 2013.
The Group’s gross revenue for the period stood at BD291.9M (US$774.3M) and increased 8% from BD271.2M (US$719.4M) for the same period in 2013. Q3 2014 gross revenues showed a 3% decrease compared to Q3 2013, but remaining steady over the last quarter. Operating profit for the nine-months of 2014 was up by 33% from BD46.5M (US$123.3M) to BD61.9M (US$164.2M). Quarterly operating profits increased 45% over Q3 2013 and 31% over Q2 2014. Batelco continues to reap the benefits of its expanded operations with some stellar performances from the Island portfolio including Sure Channel Islands & Isle of Man and Dhiraagu Maldives.
The Group’s balance sheet remains strong; as of 30 September 2014 net assets were valued at BD574.7M (US$1,524.4M) with cash balances of BD137.3M (US$364.2M). This includes the impact of the interim dividend (10 fils per share) announced and paid during the quarter. Earnings per share for the period stood at 24.6 fils.
Batelco Group CEO Alan Whelan continued by outlining the progress made in enhancing Batelco’s local networks which has increased its customer base for Broadband and Mobile services.
“The broadband subscriber base has increased by 4% since the last quarter and by a very pleasing 13% year-on-year with the upswing in numbers attributable to Batelco’s upgraded services, new entry level low priced Broadband packages and the further development of our fiber optic network with additionally the growing popularity of Batelco’s TV products and services.”
“As part of our Fiber Network expansion we announced a new line up of enhanced superfast Broadband packages with automatic migration for existing customers to double their download speeds. Batelco’s Fiber services are now available in a wider number of areas and feature the highest dedicated, stable superfast download in Bahrain with speeds up to 150Mb and the highest throttling speeds up-to 20Mb. We will continue to invest in our network and anticipate further growth in our subscriber numbers going forward as customers demand a much more sophisticated service such as this these days,” Whelan, added.
“Batelco Bahrain has witnessed an increase of 11% in its mobile subscriber base year-on-year with 4G LTE products and services playing a significant part in the growing numbers, due to the popularity of our bundled packages with the latest smart devices.”
“Key to our focus on supporting our subscribers and winning new customers, we recently announced a new mobile network enhancement programme in collaboration with Ericsson. The major project will see the upgrade of our 4G Network to provide faster mobile Broadband connections and superior voice quality, plus a set of new services and offers. This is part of our ongoing strategy which allocates millions of dinars annually to boost Bahrain’s communications’ capabilities,” Whelan, said.