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Du has no plans to expand beyond UAE [Gulf News (United Arab Emirates)]
[July 24, 2014]

Du has no plans to expand beyond UAE [Gulf News (United Arab Emirates)]


(Gulf News (United Arab Emirates) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Dubai: Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (du) plans to focus on fixed-line business and acceleration of fourth generation mobile technology (4G LTE) in the UAE for now, Osman Sultan, du's Chief Executive Officer, told Gulf News on Thursday.



He said that there is nothing on the table "to go beyond the UAE".

Du expects between 8-10 per cent growth in this year's total revenue as tourists and population is growing rapidly.


The telecom operator's mobile revenue increased by 9.5 per cent year on year to Dh2.26 billion while mobile data revenues increased by 18.6 per cent to Dh573 million.

Data now represents 29.3 per cent of mobile service revenues, up from 27.1 per cent in second quarter of last year.

The UAE TRA's "My Number, My Identity" campaign, requiring all mobile users to register their mobile number to protect customer privacy and to avoid fraud, resulted in a natural churn of 468,000 customers in the pre-paid segment as unregistered mobiles were withdrawn from the market place.

"Du has been performing very well in reducing its overheads and that is putting a brake on costs. It has reflected in net profit before royalty," said Bhanu Chaddha, telecommunications research manager at International Data Corporation (IDC).

He said the outlook for the UAE telecom market is very positive.

The company lost 389,000 mobile subscribers in the quarter compared to the first quarter of this year, registering a fall of 5.2 per cent to 7.16 million. The company had 7.55 million customers in the first quarter and 6.65 million customers in the second quarter of last year.

Du currently holds 46 per cent of the UAE mobile subscriber base.

Fixed line customers increased by 7.1 per cent to 619,000 compared to 578,000 in the second quarter of last year and an increase of 0.9 per cent compared to 614,000 in the first quarter of this year.

Broadband subscribers increased by 10.5 per cent to 163,000 in the quarter compared to 148,000 in the second quarter of last year.

Competitive environment Sultan said: "These results show that by continuously developing innovative propositions to meet our customers' requirements and rigorously implementing our efficiency strategy, we are able to deliver steady growth despite a highly competitive environment and with double digit growth across many of our key indicators and an increase in the number of higher-value post-paid customers we serve." ARPU (average revenue per user) rose due to the company's focus on data revenue and increasing the proportion of post-paid customers. Du continues to experience pricing pressures from competitors and the popularity of VOIP services, a trend the entire industry is facing. ARPU is expected to remain steady over the coming quarters.

"Going forward, we are proud to be working under the umbrella of the UAE's 2021 Vision to implement Smart Government and we look forward to outlining our plans to contribute to the transformation of Dubai into a Smart City in the near future," Sultan said.

(c) 2014 Al Nisr Publishing LLC . All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info).

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