Sustained demand for broadband services and 5G handsets has helped Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (EITC), operators of du and Virgin Mobile in the UAE, reach full-year revenues of AED12.75bn ($3.47bn) for 2022, up 9.2 percent from the previous year, and exceed the pre-pandemic levels.
Revenues in Q4 also staged growth of more than 8 percent. Full-year EBITDA grew by 12 percent to AED5.14bn ($1.4bn) reflecting strong growth in service revenues and margin expansion as well as containment of cost increase. Net profit for the year reached AED1.22bn ($330m).
In 2022, EITC invested AED2.2bn ($600m), which led to the rapid 5G network roll-out.
Du record revenue
Fahad Al Hassawi, CEO, said: “In 2022, we accelerated the recovery that we initiated the previous year. We increased our commercial dynamism and focused on innovation to capture value.
“Our new mobile products such as unlimited mobile data plans helped us reverse the declining trend in our mobile business. Our new fixed home wireless services have been extremely well-received and has attracted a new segment of customers. This allowed us to deliver an excellent 9.2 percent growth.
“We made tangible progress on our 5G network roll-out, fibre deployment and IT transformation. I would particularly praise my team for their commercial dynamism, their management of the cost base in an inflationary environment and their continuous effort to transform the business.”
The Board has recommended increasing the full-year dividend to 24 fils per share, out of which 11 fils per share were paid as an interim dividend in August 2022.
Malek Sultan Al Malek, Chairman, added: “It was an extraordinary year. Our business performed exceptionally well thanks to a robust economic environment, fuelled by population growth, an increase in tourism activity, GDP growth as well as our strong commercial momentum.
“In 2022, we turned a net profit of AED1.22bn and generated an operating free cash flow of nearly AED3bn. Notwithstanding sustained investments, our business remains highly cash generative and our balance sheet solid with AED5.3bn in available liquidity.”
EITC added 494,000 new customers to end the year with 7.9m subscribers. This reflected the growth in postpaid customers as well as a significant increase in prepaid customers during Q4. The postpaid customer base grew 10.7 percent to 1.5m with the addition of 53,000 customers in the final quarter of the year. Prepaid customer base increased to 6.4m subscribers (Q4 2022 net-additions: 441,000) driven in equal measures by population growth and high tourism activity.
ETIC’s fixed customer base increased by 37.3 percent, ending the year with 537,000 subscribers on net additions of 27,000 in Q4 (full-year net-additions: 146,000).
Mobile service revenues in Q4 2022 increased 7.6 percent year-over-year to AED1,496m on resurgent postpaid revenues. Mobile services revenues for the full-year were AED5,748m, an 8.4 percent increase on 2021.
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