du Q1 2015 Net Profit Before Royalty Rises 6.9% to AED 925 Million

27/04/2015 10:36 AST

Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company PJSC (“du”) today announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2015 showing a 6.9% rise in net profit before royalty to AED 925 million.

First quarter net income after royalty was flat on the year at AED 487.1 million, despite a 16.8% rise in royalty charge.

Underpinning the quarterly performance was a 20.5% rise in fixed line revenue and a 14.4% increase in mobile data revenue.

During the first quarter du continued to rigorously enforce the ‘My Number, My Identity’ campaign aimed at protecting subscriber privacy and detecting fraudulent behavior. As a result of this, a number of subscribers were suspended, resulting in a year-on-year decline in mobile subscribers.

Commenting on the results, Osman Sultan, du’s Chief Executive Officer, said:

“This quarter we delivered against our strategy of focusing on ‘quality growth’ as evidenced by the 20.5% rise in fixed revenue to AED 616.1 million, the 9.7% increase in EBITDA to AED1.30 billion and the 6.9% rise in net profit before royalty to AED925 million.”

“Mobile data continued to be a key earnings generator during the first quarter as customer demand for connectivity remained strong. Mobile data revenue rose 14.4% to AED715.6 million during the first three months of the year and now represents 30.9% of overall mobile service revenues, up from 27.6% in the same period a year ago.”

“It is worth noting that we have been rigorously applying the ‘My Number, My Identity’ campaign requirements over the past nine months. While we support this very worthwhile initiative, we have witnessed an impact in 2015 to our subscriber base.”

“Moving forward, we remain deeply committed to the UAE’s smart government initiative, and look forward to contributing more in helping make the UAE the ‘smartest place on Earth’.”

Press Release