Wataniya Palestine aims to raise $50 million by IPO
Palestine’s Wataniya Mobile has announced its plans to sell 15% of its share via an IPO, raising US$50.3 million in the process.
According to the company, the offer period for shares will take place between 7 November and 2 December, and will be followed by a listing on the Palestine stock exchange.
Wataniya is Palestine’s second mobile operator, having launched services in competition with Jawwal, part of incumbent operator Paltel, in November 2009. As of the end of September, the company had 302,404 subscribers, up from 110,835 at the start of the year, which it claims equates to a market share of 19% in the West Bank.
As per the company, the telco is licensed to provide mobile services in both the West Bank and Gaza, and it plans to expand its network to the latter as soon as is practicable. To date, the political situation in the region has made such a move impossible.
According to Bassam Hannoun, CEO of Wataniya Mobile, the company feels they have a very exciting time ahead, and look forward to welcoming new investors to join them as they continue to grow their community of customers in Palestine.
Qtel captures MENA
Qtel continues to reinforce its market position in the Mena region and South East Asia where major operations showed solid performance with the Group announcing strong revenue and profit growth for the nine months ended September 30, 2010.
The revenue growth reveals a 14.4% increase throughout the period. Net profit rose to US$659.28 million, showing an increase year-on-year of 3.7 percent. The company’s combined customer base remains healthy, positioned at 68.9 million. EBITDA performance also strengthened, increasing 15.1% year-on-year. EBITDA margin has also improved, closing the period at 48%.
According to Chairman of the Qtel Group, H E Sheikh Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Saud Al Thani, he is pleased with the consistent and positive progress Qtel has made as a Group. This period’s performance determines the ability to overcome challenges, capitalize on opportunities and deliver meaningful returns. He is also pleased to report solid growth for these first nine months of the period and an unbelievable positive response to our very successful bond issuances.
According to Qtel, it has continued to focus on its core strategy of maintaining its market leadership within the Qatar market, and enhancing its share of market value. The expansion of Qtel’s portfolio of new services and the successful completion of the first phase of a nationwide fibre-to-the-home programme have positioned Qtel to enjoy strong and sustainable returns moving forward. The reason for its growth is the steady increase in the number of subscribers. The customer base of Indosat has grown to 40.4 million till the quarter’s end.
Wataniya is the company that has maintained itself with a good strategic position in Kuwait. Although Kuwait has a lot of competition in the market, Wataniya still stood out from most of the organizations. Wataniya has also extended to Algeria by its Nedjma brand. The customer base of this company is 16.2 million.
Qtel has seen a good consumer-following with its Nawras brand which further strengthened Qtel’s market position. Also, Asiacell has progressed in Iraq. It has grown in revenue and profitability both. Asiacell is known for its strong brand equity and quality of service in its region.
National Mobile Telecommunications Q3 Profit plunges 3% (Kuwait)
National Mobile Telecommunications Co., the Kuwaiti phone company controlled by Qatar Telecom’s third-quarter profit declined 3.2% as competition strengthened.
According to company’s statement, net income chop down to US$63.4 million from US$64.7 million a year earlier.
According to Chairman Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al-Thani, in the company’s home market of Kuwait, they continue to address the competitive pressures and increased the share in the market. Wataniya is in competition with Mobile Telecommunications Co., the market leader known as Zain; and with Kuwait Telecommunications Co., called Viva.
According to the company, profit in the first nine months chop to US$190.4 million, or 107 fils per share, from US$340.2 million or 194 fils, a year earlier.
As per the company, Wataniya’s customer base rose almost 30% to more than 16.2 million at the end of September. Revenue advanced 14% in the first nine months, while EBITDA gained 11%.
Viva signs USD270 million deal with Huawei (Kuwait)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: USD270 million vendor financing deal has been signed by Viva with Chinese telecoms equipment manufacturer Huawei. The deal is for five years.
STC launched the Kuwaiti mobile operation, Viva in 2008 and the company competes with Zain and Wataniya in Kuwait. The deal will help the firm for funding network expansion using the latest technologies.
MTN-Orascom: What exactly is for sale?
Wataniya earns USD372.5 million profit in 2009 (Kuwait)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A net profit of KWD108.3 million (USD372.5 million) has been posted by Wataniya Telecom in the year 2009. There has been a rise from KWD82.4 million in 2008 reflecting 2009 as a profitable year for the company.
According to company chairman H.E. Sheikh Abdulla Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Thani, the company not only effectively dealt with continued competitive pressures particularly in its home market in Kuwait, but also delivered continuing positive results in other properties, and adding to this the successful launch of its operations in Palestine,
Wataniya looks forward to 2010 and seize on opportunities to further develop as a group and expand its customer base which stands today at over 15.2 million.
Largest proportion of the revenues i.e. 48% has been delivered by Wataniya Kuwait and the highest growth in the customer numbers was recorded in Algeria which was eight million. The customer base of Tunisia reached 5.21 million during 2009 while 110,000 customers were signed up by Wataniya’s newest subsidiary in Palestine.
Qatar telecom Q4 profit drops by 7%
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Due to non operational provisions in Kuwaiti’s Wataniya subsidiary, 7.9% drop in the fourth-quarter profits of QAR431 million (US$118 million) has been reported by Qatar Telecom (Qtel). 9% increase in the revenue has been shown, going up to QAR6.54 billion (US$1.8 billion) while the EBITDA was up by 4.6% to QAR2.97 billion. However, the EBITDA margin fell to 45% from 47%.
The net profit was up by 20.5% to QAR2.78 billion (US$764 million) for the full year and revenues on the other hand grew by 18.2% to QAR24 billion (US$6.6 billion).
With a rise of 5.2% over the year, 60.53 million customers were gained by Qtel across all its markets.
According to His Excellency Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al-Thani, Chairman of the Qtel Group, this has been a year of real achievement for the Qtel Group and now the company is the largest telecommunications provider in the Middle East – North Africa region by number of operations while the diversified operations have delivered strong returns and enabled the firm to thrive in a highly competitive and challenging environment.”
Kuwait’s Wataniya net profit declines by 22.5%
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: With a year-on-year loss of 22.5%, a net profit of KWD11 million (USD37.9 million) has been posted by Kuwait-based National Mobile Telecommunications Company (Wataniya), for the fourth quarter of 2009.
However, its full year net profit was up to KWD108.3 million in 2009, from KWD82.4 million in 2008. No reasons have been revealed by the company behind its declining bottom line.
Its parent company Qatar Telecom (QTel) is also expected to release its preliminary results for the full year 2009 soon, with a full disclosure scheduled for March 7. Wataniya’s operating market includes Algeria, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia and the Maldives.
Wataniya finally launches in West Bank.
Wataniya Mobile finally began operations after months of disputes with Israel. This will break Paltels monopoly and is likely to drive down prices.
Qtel owns 57% of Wataniya Palestine and the remainder is owned by the public Palestine Investment Fund. Wataniya has invested USD 100 Million already and a further $700m is planned over the next decade.
Current penetration in the west bank is only 35% which Wireless Federation expects to go up rapidly following the launch of Wataniya. Paltel currently has 1.5 million Palestinian subscribers.
Wataniya said it has received only 3.8MHz of bandwidth from Israel, instead of the 4.8MHz that had been promised. Without this Wataniya will not be able to launch 3G services.
Smart Roamer service launched by Asiacell (Iraq)
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: Asiacell, an Iraqi mobile operator, launched its Smart Roamer Service. This offers all Asiacell subscribers roaming facilities with no additional registration procedures.
Subscribers would now benefit from discounted rates of local calls as well as call back to Iraq and to other countries within the Smart Roamer Zone. Also, the service offers a fixed rate for receiving calls and sending SMS within the Smart Roamer Zone. The Smart Roamer Service includes a number of selected operators within the Smart Roamer Zone, these include the likes of Etisalat in the United Arab Emirates, Orange in Jordan, Qtel in Qatar, Nawras in Oman, Wataniya in Kuwait and Turkcell in Turkey.
