Oman Telecommunications Company (Omantel) has announced its financial results for the nine-month period ended 30 September 2012, reporting a 9.2% year-on-year rise in net profit after tax to OMR90.0 million (USD233 million), mainly supported by strong performance of the firm’s domestic operations. The company’s revenue for the period climbed by 2.9% from OMR333.2 million in 9M11 to OMR342.9 million twelve months later. Omantel attributed the rise in revenue to a 67% increase in mobile broadband subscribers, which in turn contributed to a rise in domestic retail mobile revenue of 5.4% year-on-year. Wholesale revenue meanwhile witnessed growth of 8.5% in the first nine months of 2012, mainly due to an increase in revenues from external administration and capacity sales.
Omantel’s group subscriber base grew 9.8% to reach 3.774 million customers at 30 September 2012, compared to 3.437 million a year earlier, including around 939,000 subscribers of the company’s Pakistani subsidiary, fixed-wireless telco Worldcall, which also has a division in Sri Lanka. The total domestic subscriber base (including mobile and fixed businesses) reached 2.835 million (excluding mobile resellers) at the end of September 2012, an increase of 12.3% year-on-year. ‘Our company has continued to make outstanding growth despite many challenging conditions and increased competition in the domestic market,’ commented Omantel’s CEO, Dr. Amer Awadh Al Rawas, adding: ‘Our increased thrust on providing enhanced network coverage across the Sultanate and improved customer experience have resulted in a strong performance of our domestic operations leading to a significant growth in our customer base especially mobile and fixed broadband customers, which have grown by 67% and 32% respectively. Furthermore, Omantel Mobile continued to lead the market with a notable growth in the company’s individual and mobile network market share.’