Oman’s second national telecoms operator Nawras Telecom has announced it generated revenue of OMR146.1 million (USD378 million) in the nine months ended 30 September 2011, an increase of 5.1% over the same period of 2010, while third-quarter turnover rose 3.1% year-on-year to OMR49.2 million. In a statement to the Muscat Securities Market, the company said that 3Q 2011 earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew 8.3% year-on-year to OMR27.5 million, but remained flat for the first nine months of the year at OMR76 million. Nawras said that EBITDA was favourably impacted by a reversal of provisions amounting to OMR1.16 million. Net profit for the third quarter grew by 8.0% to OMR13.5 million compared to OMR12.5 million in the year-ago quarter, while 9M net profit dropped from OMR38 million in 2010 to OMR35.6 million in the corresponding period of 2011, due to higher depreciation and amortisation charges relating to the build out of its fixed and mobile networks.
At 30 September 2011 Nawras reported a total of 1.946 million subscribers, down from 2.019 million a year earlier, due to regulatory changes in the rules for counting its customer base. The company’s pre-paid mobile subscriber base dropped from 1.840 million in 3Q10 to 1.756 million a year later, while its post-paid wireless customers remained broadly static at 173,506. Despite the fall in mobile customer numbers, CEO Ross Cormack said the company is ‘encouraged by growth in pre-paid mobile data, including BlackBerry and smartphone revenue contributions, which confirms our belief in the potential of the mobile data market for Nawras.’ The firm’s fixed customer base meanwhile increased from 4,900 to 17,090 over the same period.