UAE’s Etisalat marks a 7% increase in YoY profit

Emirates Telecommunications Group Company Etisalat marked on Thursday a 3.9 percent year-over-year increase in its first-quarter net profit following federal royalties to $1.28 billion, leading to a net profit margin of 18 percent, the company reported on Monday.

In the UAE, the subscriber-based telecom company reached 12.1 million fixed and mobile subscribers in its domestic market by the end of June. Also, the accumulated user base reached a whopping 156.1 million across its whole group footprint in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia, demonstrating a year-over-year (YoY) increase of 7 percent.

“Etisalat continues to demonstrate strong performance showcasing growth across its operations for the first half of the year, thanks to our continuous efforts and focus on our vision of driving the digital future with a strong commitment towards the societies we serve and adding value to our shareholders,” Etisalat Group CEO Hatem Dowidar said in a statement.

Back on June 20, the Emirate telecom group announced that it will join forces with Swedish telecom vendor Ericsson to implement a 5G millimeter-wave across its commercial network. This 5G high-band commercial implementation helped Etisalat achieve high performance 5G downlink data speeds of 4.2 Gbps and latency of 8 milliseconds.

“With our success in deploying 5G as well as taking the global lead in fiber penetration, we ensured that our networks are future-ready for the next generation of mobile networks and technologies,” Dowidar addressed the role 5G had in increasing net revenues.

In April, UAE Trade Connect (UTC) announced in a press conference a production plan to launch a trade finance blockchain system with the help of the Emirati-based telecommunications service provider Etisalat Digital, seven UAE banks, and Avanza Innovations.

From its part, Etisalat Group declared in a statement that its board had already given its approval on an interim dividend for the first half of 2021 of 40 fills per share.

Etisalat Group board already gave its approval for a final dividend for the year 2020 at the rate of $0.11 share for distribution to shareholders registered at the close of business on March 3rd, 2021. Also, in late July, the Board of Directors declared the first interim dividend for the year 2021 at the rate of 0.11 per share.