Page 33 - SAMENA Trends - May-June 2024

REGIONAL & MEMBERS UPDATES SAMENA TRENDS

Sustainability Week, Omantel was awarded
with the Silver Award in the Environmental,
Social, and Governance (ESG) Practices
category during the Oman Sustainability
Week Awards ceremony. Oman
Sustainability Week is a major event on the
national sustainability calendar designed
to highlight the Sultanate of Oman’s
commitment to sustainability leadership
through innovative strategies aligned with
Oman Vision 2040, the UN Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) and Net Zero
Emission by 2050. The event engages
the national development stakeholders
to present Oman as a new model for
sustainable development and to achieve
the global target of Net Zero Emissions by
2050. Omantel has succeeded, through the
integration of its operations, processes, to various consumer and business and providing cutting-edge solutions
and extensive expertise in the field of sectors. The company aims to deliver in modern technology, information and
communications and digital technology, an unparalleled, exceptional experience communications technology, such as cloud
in establishing its position as a leading to its subscribers and strives to always solutions, ICT solutions, AI, Smart solutions,
telecommunications company within exceed their expectations. Omantel works cybersecurity, and much more, in addition
the Sultanate of Oman and beyond. The towards contributing to the achievement to harnessing its technological capabilities
company's innovative approaches have of Oman Vision 2040 objectives by to enhance innovation and leadership in
contributed to providing the latest solutions investing in emerging technologies new and advanced technologies.

Zain Group Reports Q1 2024 Revenue of US$1.5
billion (KD 466 million), Net Profit of US$95 million

(KD 29.2 million)

Zain Group announces its consolidated impacted by the Sudan crisis due to dam- restated KSA tower net profit gains, the
financial results for the first quarter (Q1) aging military attacks on business oper- drop in Q1 2024 Y-o-Y net income would
ended March 31, 2024, with the company ating systems, inaccessibility to custom- be significantly less
serving 42.4 million customers. Zain Group er data centers, limited network coverage 5. There is no impact on Zain Group of
recorded stable consolidated Revenue and retail distribution challenges. More- above restatement and reclassifications
of KD 466 million (USD 1.5 billion) for Q1 over, it is estimated that 6.5 million peo- on the net profit and the consolidated
2024. EBITDA for the quarter reached KD ple have been internally displaced with financial statement reported and issued
148 million (USD 480 million), reflecting an 2 million migrating to neighboring coun- as at 31 December 2023, as all necessary
EBITDA margin of 32%. Net income for the tries. Nevertheless, the recovery plan and adjustments required have already been
quarter reached KD 29 million (USD 95 mil- new data center is seeing an exponential accounted for in the consolidated finan-
lion), reflecting an Earnings Per Share of 7 uptake in customers in Q2 2024 cial statements for the year ended 31 De-
Fils (USD 0.02). 3. The decrease in Q1 2024 net income cember 2023.
Key Operational Notes for Q1 2024 compared to the restated Q1 2023 net in- 6. Data revenue grows 1% to reach USD 595
1. Zain Group maintained stable revenue come, is mainly due to a one-time gain on million, representing 39% of the Group’s
due to strong top-line performance sale and leaseback of the Zain KSA tower overall revenue
across main operations including Iraq transaction 7. During the quarter, Group invested USD
(+14%), Kuwait (+7%), KSA (+5%) and 4. The restatement of the Q1 2023 consol- 39 million in CAPEX rolling out 5G and
Jordan (+3%). This is despite the ongoing idated statement of profit and loss was FTTH
crisis and associated network operation- due to the accounting of KSA tower trans- 8. Kuwait, KSA, Bahrain, and Jordan contin-
al challenges in Sudan where network action which was revisited in the Q4 2023 ue to grow their 5G customer bases
services and coverage areas are gradual- due to the significant judgements and es- 9. Fintech services Group-wide (Tamam
ly improving timations involved in assessing transfer in KSA, Zain Cash in Iraq and Jordan)
2. Group customer base was significantly of control. Excluding this impact of the report exponential growth as total reve-

33 MAY-JUNE 2024