Du reports first ever annual profit

The United Arab Emirates’ second largest telecoms operator by subscribers, Du, has announced net income of AED78 million (USD21.2 million) in the fourth quarter of 2008, allowing the company to achieve its first annual profit since it launched services in February 2007. It posted 2008 full year net profit of AED4.12 million, compared to a loss of AED885.2 million a year earlier. Overall revenue for 2008 grew by 157% year-on-year to AED3.9 billion, compared to AED1.5 billion during 2007, attributed to the strong growth in mobile revenues from new subscribers and continued growth in the company’s fixed subscriber base. At end-2008 Du reported its mobile subscriber base increased by 104% to 2.5 million, up from 1.2 million a year earlier, while its fixed line base increased by 72% from 163,000 at end-2007 to 280,000 active users at the end of the following year. Osman Sultan, CEO of Du, said, ‘In less than two years, Du has made remarkable progress. Throughout 2008, we built on the solid foundations already in place to grow our business substantially. Active mobile subscribers more than doubled year-on-year, with fixed line subscribers demonstrating strong growth. In a mature telecoms market, we continue to offer our customers new and original packages that will also help grow our business across all segments.’