[google] Kuwaiti telecommunications giant Zain announced on Thursday that first quarter net profit dived by 31.7 percent due to the continued impact of the global financial crisis.
The company said it posted a net profit of 179.1 million dollars compared to 262 million dollars in the year-earlier quarter.
"Local, regional and international markets are still reeling under the global financial crisis which posed a challenge to the group," a statement quoted chairman Asaad al-Banwan as saying.
Zain is in the process of finalising the sale of its operations in 15 African nations to India's top mobile operator, Bharti Airtel, for 10.7 billion dollars, which includes 1.7 billion dollars in debt.
Banwan said Zain operations in the Middle East recorded an encouraging normal growth during the first quarter. Its Middle East customer base rose to 31.4 million clients on March 31 from 24.6 million a year earlier.
Zain's net profit in 2009 slumped by 39 percent to 677 million dollars from 1.11 billion dollars the previous year.
Shareholders' equity increased by 10 percent to 8.72 billion dollars at the end of the first quarter from 7.95 billion dollars.
Capitalisation rose to 20.5 billion dollars as of Thursday, compared to 12 billion dollars a year earlier.
Zain, in which the state owns a 24.6 percent stake, is one of three mobile operators in Kuwait, along with the National Telecommunications Co (Wataniya) and Kuwait Telecommunications Co (VIVA).
Kuwait's Zain net profit slides 31 percent in Q1
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment