Batelco Group Operations and Mobile Segment | 1st Half of 2012

OPERATIONAL HIGHLIGHTS

For the first six months of 2012, the Batelco Group’s operating performance remained steady with progress made in key operations abroad. Market leadership in Bahrain was maintained through an ongoing focus on value, innovation and customer service.

Commenting on the highlights for the period, Group CEO, Shaikh Mohamed bin Isa Al Khalifa, said:
“Throughout the first half of the year, the Group-wide focus was on improving our competitive position through marketing new offers to customers, introducing new services and ensuring we delivered superior quality of service and customer care.
While intense competition naturally continues to impact us in Bahrain, we remain pleased with our ability to maintain market leadership and with the overall retention rates for our mobile, broadband and enterprise customers. Looking across our regional operations, there was additional progress made in a number of key markets especially Jordan and Yemen. A significant investment was made in Jordan with the launch of the Umniah 3.75G service late in June and strong customer take up of mobile data services is anticipated.”

Shaikh Mohamed continued: “We ended the period with 7M customers across six markets.

We are working to build on this. Further organic growth is expected in our overseas operations during the second half of 2012. We are also actively pursuing opportunities to build our network through strategic acquisitions, which will add value and enhance our operational capabilities as we go forth.”

MOBILE AND BROADBAND SEGMENTS

For the first six months of the year, the Group reported a decline in mobile subscribers of 34% when compared to the corresponding 2011 period. This is largely due to the adjustment for the exclusion of STel operational and customer data. As announced previously, the sale of STel is expected to be completed by the end of October 2012.

Normalising for the exclusion of STel, mobile subscriber numbers across the Group for the six-month period was stable year over year. This was in line with expectations and primarily the result of ongoing competitive pressures in Bahrain and the review of the subscriber base in Yemen, which was announced during the first quarter of the year.

On a quarter-over-quarter basis, however, mobile subscriber numbers grew by 2%. This positive trend was supported by progress in Jordan and Yemen in particular, where the Group’s operations continued to strengthen their performance.

Broadband customer numbers for the period were stable for the first six month of the year, growing by 1% year over year and by 2% since the start of 2012.