Saudi's Mobily posts $500m Q4 net profit

Etihad Etisalat (Mobily), Saudi Arabia's No.2 telecom operator, beat forecasts with an 11 percent rise in quarterly net profit on Saturday.

Mobily, an affiliate of the UAE's Etisalat , posted fourth-quarter net profit of SR1.878bn ($500.8m), up from SR1.697bn in the prior-year period, it said in a bourse statement.

Analysts polled by Reuters on average forecast Mobily, which competes with the Gulf's No.1 operator Saudi Telecom Co and Zain Saudi, would make a quarterly profit of SR1.78bn.

Mobily's fourth-quarter revenue was SR6.77bn, up 17 percent from SR5.80bn from the prior-year period.

Full-year profit for 2012 was SR6.02bn, a rise of 18 percent from SR5.08bn in 2011.

In late November, the Saudi telecom regulator suspended Mobily from selling pre-paid SIM cards for two weeks. At the time, Mobily said the financial impact of the suspension would be "insignificant".