Zain Bahrain, a leading telecommunications services provider in the kingdom, has announced an 8.3 per cent growth in its net profit for the third quarter which soared to BD1.3 million ($3.4 million) as the operator’s digitization efforts continued to enhance operations.

Announcing the nine-month results, Zain said this compares to BD1.2 million ($3.2 million) for the same period last year, a positive result in the face of an increasingly competitive Bahrain telecoms market.

Quarterly revenues meanwhile improved by 3.6 per cent, from BD16.9 ($44.7 million) to BD17.5 million ($46.3 million). The company’s ebitda was relatively stable standing at BD5.6 million ($14.8 million), it stated.

For the first nine months, the company reported a 12 per cent spike in revenues, strongly driven by data, from BD48.8 million ($129.1 million) to BD54.5 million ($144.2 million), said the statement.

The company’s net profit for the nine-month period was down by 6.6 per cent from BD3 million ($8 million) to BD2.8 million ($7.4 million). Despite this, the company’s year to date ebitda was BD16.7 million ($44.2 million) with a healthy ebitda margin that stood at 30.1 per cent, it added.

Zain Bahrain Chairman Shaikh Ahmed bin Ali Al Khalifa said: "Our utilization of the full capabilities of our network, our continued investment in creating a digital lifestyle for our customer base, and our efforts to digitize processes internally have resulted in greater efficiencies, with revenues rising and expenditures simultaneously reducing."

"These efforts are helping the company to maintain a healthy balance sheet despite intense competition and a highly-saturated market with an over 150 per cent penetration rate. We remain on track towards another profitable year, maintaining the momentum gained during 2016," remarked Shaikh Ahmed.

"We also look forward to a strong 2017 and a further expansion of our market offerings," he added.-TradeArabia News Service