Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel) has announced it generated total group revenue of OMR109.9 million (USD284 million) in the quarter ended 30 September 2011, an increase of 12.8% compared to the OMR97.4 million reported in the year-ago period, while turnover for the first nine months of 2011 rose 5.5% year-on-year to OMR333.2 million. The company said that operating expenses in 9M 2011 increased 9.0% year-on-year to OMR244.2 million, mainly due to costs related to the sale of capacity from the Europe India Gateway (EIG) submarine cable system, as well as a rise in depreciation costs due to continued expansion of the company’s 3.5G wireless network and its fixed line next generation network (NGN). Net profit after tax totalled OMR82.7 million in the nine-month period, down slightly from OMR82.99 million in 9M 2010, but increased by 25% from OMR22.4 million in 3Q10 to OMR28.0 million twelve months later.
Total subscribers stood at 3.437 million at 30 September 2011, an increase of 4.1% from 3.303 million a year earlier. The figure includes 912,000 customers (up 7.1%) attributed to Omantel’s Pakistani subsidiary Worldcall Telecommunications (WTL), in which the operator has a 56.8% stake. Omantel’s domestic mobile subscriber base grew 3.9% year-on-year to 2.207 million at the end of September 2011.