Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) recorded a net profit of SR714 million for Q1 2010, as compared to SR480 million for the same quarter of the previous year, presenting a growth of 49 percent, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. The EBITDA margin stood at 33 percent for the quarter as compared to 32 percent for the same quarter last year. Revenue for Q1 2010 reached SR3.581 billion with an increase of 27 percent when compared to Q1 2009 results. Operating profit for Q1 2010 reached SR763 million with an increase of 43 percent when compared to Q1 2009 results of SR533 million. Earnings per share increased from SR0.69 for Q1 2009 to SR1.02 for Q1 2010. The increase in revenue is attributed to growing demand for mobile broadband and an increase in postpaid subscribers resulting from the company's overall marketing strategy primarily focused on increasing customer loyalty, stimulating usage, and increasing penetration rates especially in high potential segments in record time. Revenues of telecommunication operators in Saudi Arabia noticeably increase in the quarter coinciding with the Haj season and Eid holidays. Mobily's Chairman Eng. Abdulaziz Al Saghyir said: “We believe that mobile broadband is the future. Demand for wireless Internet services grows day by day. Mobily continues to invest in this technology and take it to new levels to meet the needs of its customers. Mobily has successfully completed LTE trials, also known as 4G, which provides even higher bandwidth speeds, thereby widening the variety of service offerings on the company's current infrastructure integrated with other wireless technologies.” The chairman added that the company had signed an agreement with the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology to manage and operate the second phase of the secure government network. This network aims at meeting the requirements of the Kingdom's largest e-government initiative, “Yusr,” an electronic transaction network that ties 100 government bodies together. This agreement is also expected to pave the way for future projects and electronic services. “There is real potential for Mobily's business offerings, which is why we plan on focusing more in the coming period on high value business customers, the government sector and the private sector. We are also seeking out strategic partnerships and alliances with entities that have specialized expertise needed in large public/private sector projects - to grow Mobily's earnings in the business segment of the market. In addition, we will continue to manage our costs efficiently,” he further said. “Cisco giving Mobily its “Most Innovative Data Center Project” award for 2010 “is testimony that we are on the right track,” said Al Saghyir, “and have a clear vision of the opportunities available in the market and how to utilize them,” Al Saghyir noted. The Chairman assured that Mobily would maintain its lead in the mobile broadband segment of the market, a segment it had created from the ground up and had contributed to the Kingdom being described as having one of the world's busiest mobile data networks.
