Internet revenues ring in BD71m Batelco profits
MANAMA: Batelco announced yesterday profits of BD70.6 million on a turnover of BD170.1m for the first nine months of this year.
The results were announced by newly-appointed Batelco chairman Shaikh Hamad bin Abdulla Al Khalifa at a board meeting held at the company’s Hamala headquarters.
At the end of the third quarter, Batelco’s results showed an increase in group net profit of 8.3 per cent, compared to the same period last year with operating profits showing an even stronger improvement to 13pc.
Growth in net revenues was 8.2pc over the same period.
Data, Internet and mobiles services revenues contributed to growth, while international call revenues declined as a result of fierce price competition from VoIP calling cards with lower quality, prepaid services, the company said in a statement.
“Operating expenditure has been tightly managed and earnings per share have risen to 59 fils, a 9.2pc increase.
Shaikh Hamad said that he was pleased to lead a successful company with an international reputation.
“Batelco has been facing many competitive and regulatory challenges and will continue to do so,” he said.
“However, it has a strong and experienced team driving the business to new levels of performance.
“We have completed 25 years and are recognised as the leaders in telecommunications, not only in Bahrain, but also the region.
“I am confident that the dedication and hard work of all the Batelco employees will only further strengthen our position.”
Batelco’s chief executive officer Peter Kaliaropoulos said the results reflected the implementation of the Peak Performance strategy approved by the board in December last year.
“In the most competitive market in the Middle East, we remain focused on improving our customers’ experience,” he said.
“We have introduced new innovative mobile technology such as Blackberry and i-Teq X-Bond (the first Microsoft based PDA mobile with television in the Middle East), new content for mobiles including Multimedia Message Service (MMS) and Batelco Connect (offering the latest news updated every four hours), lower prices for residential and business broadband services and many new pricing plans for mobiles and broadband.”
“Additionally, our IDD pre-paid card rates are among the lowest in the country.”
Batelco is currently in the process of migrating all its services to the next generation network (NGN) infrastructure.
Once complete, Bahrain’s residential and business customers will enjoy the benefits of state-of-the-art integrated communications services that are on a par with the best the world has to offer, the company said.
“Batelco’s network strategy is to create a data centric network capable of supporting data voice and multimedia services competitively,” added Mr Kaliaropoulos.
The company recently introduced a BD10 Broadband Package, which its says was the most affordable across the GCC.
“We are growing broadband penetration for the first time in three years,” he said.
“We want to transform Bahrain to be a regional leader for broadband services and the most attractive destination for businesses to locate their call and data centres in the GCC.”
Batelco’s strategic priorities also involve expansion into new markets and managing costs better based on benchmarking operational effectiveness, it said.
“Our acquisition of Umniah is another milestone to achieving growth,” added Mr Kaliaropoulos.
“It gives us access to six million people in Jordan and allows us to improve economies of scale in our mobile business.”
He said that company managed to improve its results by focusing on the fundamentals.
“Better products and services, innovation, lower prices and more convenient ways to purchase services,” said Mr Kaliaropoulos.
“We are focused on retaining our customers’ loyalty.
“By reducing operational costs, introducing more innovation and expanding in new markets, we will continue to deliver more benefits to our customers and in turn, our shareholders.
“Our customers’ support and our employees efforts are critical ingredients for long term success.”
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