Du one year ahead of target for making profit- CEO

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CAN DU: The UAE telecom firm is a year ahead of schedule after making profit in 2008, its CEO said. (Getty Images)

Du, the UAE telecommunications company, is one year ahead of its target after achieving profit in 2008, the company chief has said.

“The most important thing is that we have entered the stage of profitability which is more significant than the net profit,” said Othman Sultan, Du CEO, in an interview with CNBC Arabiya.

“To have achieved this before the end of two years is a very good sign. We expect that this amount will be reduced gradually to get to the complete profitability stage, after we factor in the total loss and profits in all previous years,” he added.

Du’s initial company action plan forecasted that profitability would happen only after three years from startup, at the end of 2009.

"The more growth and more revenue we have, the more we work to reduce expenses and improve operational efficiency. We expect to see profits increase when revenues increase,” concluded Sultan.

Dubai telecom firm du announced on Monday it had earned 78 million dirhams ($21.24 million) in the fourth quarter as the firm recorded its first full-year profit on rising mobile phone subscribers.

Du, which ended the virtual monopoly of Emirates Telecommunications Corp (Etisalat) in 2007, posted 2008 net profit of 4.12 million dirhams compared with a net loss of 885.27 million dirhams a year earlier.

Du's mobile phone subscriptions doubled compared with last year, with the number of its active mobile phone subscribers reaching 2.5 million, the firm said.

Fixed-line subscribers advanced 72 percent year-on-year to to 280,000 active subscribers.

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READERS' COMMENTS

du profits
Posted by Riyaz Neem, Dubai, UAE on Sunday 15 February 2009 at 18:21 UAE time


Given the unregulated, semingly random manner in which du bills their customers, I'm surprised it took them this long to become profitable. As a du corporate customer in DMC, I am one of many unfortunates that have no choice but cough up their ridiculous, unsubstantiated "excess internet usage" bills. They truly have no idea what they du...

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