Abu Dhabi: Etisalat on Wednesday said that it will focus on innovation and in developing a favourable ecosystem through successful collaborations and targeted investments in future technologies.
“Within the overall scheme of things, innovation remains at the core of our priorities. We believe in nurturing open innovation and in developing a favourable ecosystem through successful collaboration and targeted investments in future technologies,” Saleh Al Abdouli, Etisalat Group CEO, said in a statement on Wednesday.
Etisalat group reported a net profit of Dh2.4 billion for the third quarter of this year, an increase of 29 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Group consolidated revenues amounted to Dh12.9 billion in the third quarter of 2017, down by 3 per cent compared to Dh13.2 billion reported during the same period last year.
Aggregate subscriber base reached 140 million, the company said with the UAE subscriber base reaching 12.5 million representing year-on-year increase of 2 per cent.
Analysts attributed rise in profits to increase in subscriber base and also due to Swyp marketing campaign targeting youth.
“Given that third quarter is normally a softer quarter, the results reported by Etisalat are extremely encouraging. The positive growth in the third quarter as compared to last year is probably result of launch of new brand in UAE targeted at youth,” Sukhdev Singh, vice-president at market research and analysis services provider AMRB told Gulf News.
“It is difficult to miss ‘Swyp’ marketing effort in the last couple of months even though it was a reactive strategy to Virgin’s introduction in the market backed by du.”
Economically it is bit difficult market, and to grow net subscriber base by 2 per cent is noticeable achievement, he said.
“Given the technology leadership Etisalat maintains in the telecom space, one expects Etisalat to launch new data enabled services in the consumer as well as enterprise space. They have already tested 5G in the country.”
“One believes that most of the incremental revenue is driven by data services rather than voice. The new solutions, which can offered on back on stable high speed data services such as M2M and IOT services will start to impact business revenues over next couple of years more than before.”
Etisalat has also been working effectively to curb VOIP apps which impact the voice revenues in an expat dominant market. However, it is a difficult space to control effectively, and new apps keep mushrooming, he added.
Listed on Abu Dhabi stock exchange, Etisalat is active in sixteen countries across the Middle East, Africa and Asia. The company’s shareholding structure consist of 60 per cent held by Emirates Investment Authority and 40 per cent free float.
Total consolidated debt amounted to Dh25.2 billion as of September 30, 2017 compared to Dh22.3 billion as at December 31, 2016, an increase of Dh3 billion.
Etisalat, which had a 45 per cent stake in the Nigerian business, terminated a management agreement with its Nigerian arm and phased out the etisalat brand in Nigeria to 9mobile.
