Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (Du) has announced its financial results for the full year and the fourth quarter of 2012. The Dubai-based telco recorded net profit after royalty of AED994 million (USD270.5 million) for the last three months of 2012, an increase of 125.8% year-on-year, while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) grew 38.6% from AED848 million in Q4 2011 to AED1.18 billion in the same period a year later. Revenue for the fourth quarter of 2012 totalled AED2.74 billion, up 13.6% from AED2.41 billion a year earlier, with growth driven by strong mobile customer additions and rising data usage, which contributed to a 15.4% rise in Q4 mobile revenue to AED2.18 billion. Mobile data revenues increased by 60.6% year-on-year, from AED319 million in Q4 2011 to AED512 million twelve months later, while the fixed business generated turnover of AED394 million in Q4 2012, compared to AED391 million in the year-ago quarter. Du added a total of 496,628 net active mobile customers during the fourth quarter of 2012 (including 37,216 post-paid users), bringing the firm’s total wireless subscriber base to 6.457 million at the end of the reporting period, 7.94% of which were contract customers.
Full year revenue, meanwhile, rose 14.7% from AED8.85 billion in 2011 to AED10.16 billion the following year, with mobile revenues increasing 16% to AED7.93 billion in 2012 and fixed line turnover rising 9.8% to AED1.62 billion. EBITDA jumped 37.1% year-on-year to AED3.99 billion in 2012. Du said that net profit after royalty for the year stood at AED1.98 billion, up from AED1.10 billion in 2011, reflecting the royalty payable to the UAE government for 2012 of 5% of revenues and 17.5% of net profit, which resulted in a royalty payment of AED844 million, compared to AED715 million in 2011; Du had provisioned to pay 50% of its profit in royalty fees through the year.