Omantel Q1 2012 net profit up 13%

Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel) has announced its preliminary financial results for the three months ended 31 March 2012, reporting a 0.4% fall in revenue to OMR111.1 million (USD288 million) from OMR111.5 million in the year-ago period. The company attributed the slight drop in turnover to the sale of submarine capacity in the first quarter of 2011, which generated one-off revenue of OMR9.046 million. Excluding this one-off item, group revenue for Q1 2012 recorded year-on-year growth of 8.4%, mainly driven by growth of domestic mobile retail revenues by 10%. Net profit after tax for the first three months of 2012 totalled OMR29.1 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 13%. At March 2012 Omantel reported a total of 3.627 million fixed and mobile subscribers (including customers of its Pakistani subsidiary Worldcall Telecommunications), an increase of 11% from 3.258 million a year earlier. The firm’s domestic subscriber base grew 13% year-on-year to 2.693 million, with growth mainly driven by its mobile business.