By Shaji Mathew
Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Co. beat estimates and posted its first profit as revenue rose after the United Arab Emirates-based phone company added new subscribers.
Net income in the third-quarter was 31 million dirhams ($8.4 million), or 1 fil a share, compared with a loss of 242 million dirhams, or 6 fils a share, in the year-earlier period, the company known as Du said today in a statement on the Web site of Dubai's bourse. Sales more than doubled to 1.05 billion dirhams as the number of subscribers rose to 2.67 million.
``The numbers are a surprise as we had expected Du to report a loss of 14 million dirhams in the third-quarter and make a profit either in the last quarter or early next year,'' Marise Ananian, an analyst at EFG-Hermes Holding SAE, the biggest publicly traded investment bank in Egypt, said in a phone interview from Cairo today.
The U.A.E., which has the second-largest Arab economy after Saudi Arabia, licensed Du in 2006 to reform the telecom industry and introduce competition for the first time. Du competes with Emirates Telecommunications Corp., or Etisalat, the largest telecommunications company in the country.
Shares Gain
Du advanced 0.7 percent to close at 4.17 dirhams, valuing the company at 16.7 billion dirhams. The stock, which rose 6 percent in intra-day trading, has dropped 44 percent this year, compared with a 50 percent decline in the Dubai Financial Market General Index.
``Achieving net profit in just 19 months of operation is a very significant milestone,'' Osman Sultan, Du's chief executive officer, said in the statement. The company had forecast it would achieve a profit by the end of 2009.
To contact the reporter on this story: Shaji Mathew in Dubai at shajimathew@bloomberg.net
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