Zain announces 7% increase in profits

The Zain Group has increased its third quarter profitability by 7%, the company announced in a statement released yesterday.
The Kuwaiti phone company with operations in 22 Middle Eastern and African countries with subscriber base of more than 56 million.

Zain in a statement yesterday said its income climbed to $327 million or nine cents a share, while revenue in the period rose 25 percent to $1.89 billion.
The telecoms giant which in Nigeria has over 15 million subscribers, predicted a 30 percent rise in profit next year as the global credit crisis enables it to buy assets at very low prices according to its Chief Executive Officer, Saad al Baraak.
The company is looking at investment opportunities in the region to become the largest telecommunications operator in the Middle East and Africa, he said. Orascom Telecom Holding SAE is the biggest mobile-phone company in the Middle East.
Zain had 56.3 million customers in the two areas and is on target to reach 150 million subscribers by 2011.
Zain in September announced the successful completion of its capital increase raising US$4.49 billion (KWD1.2 billion) with 99% of all shareholders subscribing. The number of subscribed shares exceeded 1.4 billion, bringing the total number of Zain shares to 4.28 billion with total shareholders’ equity reaching US$6.42 billion as at June 30, 2008.
The amount raised is unprecedented in Kuwaiti’s history exceeding all expectations, given the gloomy trends that have recently dominated local and international markets and resulted in sharp declines in the prices of oil as well as significant collapses in the financial markets worldwide.
It will be recalled that Zain in August rebranded its entire African operations from Celtel to Zain The move coincided with the linking of the world’s first borderless mobile service ‘One Network’ across two continents.

By ITnewsAfrica.com Reporter