Du secures USD100m loan facility

United Arab Emirates-based telecoms operator Du has announced the singing of a USD100 million loan facility to fund its capital investment plans. Du, which competes in the UAE telecoms market with incumbent Etisalat, inked the three-year investment agreement with the Dubai branch of Singapore-based DBS Bank. ‘Our commitment to investment in innovation, products and services has been a key driver of growth. We are confident that Du is well positioned to continue to maximise growth opportunities going forward and to achieve this will require investment in key areas of our business,’ stated Osman Sultan, CEO of Du, adding: ‘This financing is an essential part of our ongoing programme of capital investment that in this case will fund the acquisition of equipment from Huawei to enhance network performance and operations in HSPA+, Long Term Evolution (LTE) and Advanced LTE.’ The executive said that the investment will help to enhance customer experience and enable the operator to launch maximum speeds of up to 300Mbps. TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database notes that Du is the smaller of two mobile operators in the UAE wireless market, with a total of 5.96 million customers at 30 September 2012 (a market share of 45.8%), just behind rival Etisalat with 7.05 million subscribers (54.2%).