Saudi Telecom Company (STC) announced yesterday that its first quarter net profit this year rose by 102 percent to SR2.26 billion ($603 million).
"This is the largest first-quarter profits announced by a Saudi company," an STC statement said. Khaled Al-Mulhim, STC's president, said the company's operating income last year rose 19 percent to SR23.55 billion compared to revenues of SR19.78 billion in the previous year. The company's net profit last year was estimated at SR3.55 billion. The president attributed the huge growth in revenues to the increase in the number of subscribers to STC services. It has made huge profits from sales of prepaid mobile phone (SAWA) cards. About 300,000 SAWA chips are sold every month, according to the statement published today by Arab News. "We achieved this increase in revenues despite the discounts we have offered to our clients on various service charges," he added.
The company introduced a high-speed ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) service for Internet users at the rate of SR220 a month. It also offers a new digital subscriber line (DSL) service which offers high speed, convenient, secure and affordable voice, data and video transmission. Al-Mulhim said the company's operating income in the first quarter of this year climbed 24 percent to SR6.71 billion. Operating income in the first quarter of this year climbed 24 percent to SR6.71billion. The company has approved a decision taken by the board of directors to distribute SR750 million in dividends from STC's profits last year, Al-Mulhim said, adding that the remaining amount from the SR2.796 billion profit will be kept as reserves.
Al-Mulhim highlighted the company's financial position and said STC's giant expansion project as well as restructuring of its operation systems would bring more revenues. STC has awarded an SR2.545 billion project to Ericsson and Nokia to expand the country's mobile phone system by adding 2.8 million lines within two years. The company has a monopoly over telephone, mobile and Internet services in the Kingdom. Mobile services will be liberalized next year and land lines in 2008.
Source: SPA
