Batelco Group Chairman Shaikh Hamad bin Abdulla Al Khalifa reiterated Batelco’s commitment to growth and innovation as he announced a record breaking set of full year results at the Board meeting held on 30th January at the Company’s Hamala Headquarters.
Batelco Group achieved a year-on-year rise in gross revenues of 25% to $777.4 million (BD 293.1m) with net profits reaching a record breaking level of $269.2 million (BD 101.5 m) an increase of 13.6% compared to last year. Operating expenditure and overheads have been diligently managed and earnings per share have risen to 84.6 fils from 74.4 fils in 2006.
“We are very pleased with this excellent set of operational and financial figures delivered as a result of our successful ventures throughout the region and by maintaining our market leadership in Bahrain,” said Shaikh Hamad.
“Our Board of Directors will recommend to the General Assembly of Shareholders a cash dividend of $127.3 million (BD 48 m) representing the equivalent of 40% of the paid-up capital – at a value of 40 fils per share, of which 20 fils per share was announced and paid in July 2007. The remaining 20 fils will be paid after the Annual General Assembly.”
In addition, the Board of Directors will also recommend a 20% bonus share issue, awarding one extra share for every five shares currently held by the Company’s shareholders.
“While the Group will continue to expand its size and horizons, the heart of Batelco will always be the Bahrain market. We will continue to offer best value top quality products and services for our customers. Their loyalty keeps us in a leading position and we intend to remain their first choice with new technologies and smart solutions,” the Group Chairman said.
Batelco Chief Executive Peter Kaliaropoulos stated that the 2007 results are indicative of Batelco’s business strategy laid down in 2005 that is now coming to fruition. “First and foremost we set out to transform our operational capabilities by forging a more customer responsive company that offers strong value for money with a comprehensive range of innovative products & services. In addition, we created a more diversified regional operation across the Middle East,” he said.
“Our customers in Bahrain throughout 2007 benefited from over 190 promotions offering better value for mobile, broadband and IDD services without any compromise on quality of service, in addition to the BD10 BB service, IDD call rates to GCC and other countries were slashed, business and education broadband prices cut by 50% and postpaid mobile customers benefited from free credit, free minutes and free SMS packages.”
“Batelco directly invested $388 million (BD 146.4 m) in Bahrain’s economy in 2007,” said Mr. Kaliaropoulos. “In 2007, approximately $145.2 million in cash dividends were distributed to Bahraini shareholders, $79.6 million in salaries and training to our employees, $12.1 million in donations to the community, $71.6 million in capital expenditure, $6.1 million in fees to the TRA and $73.7 million payments to various suppliers. Ultimately, such a direct injection of funds from Batelco, delivers benefits in terms of billions of dollars flow on, resulting from the multiplier effect across our national economy,” added Mr. Kaliaropoulos.
“In addition to direct benefits to customers in terms of lower prices and improved quality of customer care, Bahrain’s access to global information and communications services is ahead of numerous international markets because of Batelco’s investments in advanced services.”
“Batelco’s 668,000 mobile customers, 202,000 fixed line customers and 72,000 internet customers have access to the most advanced, 21st century New Generation Network enabled by 3.5G WCDMA and ADSL2 access technologies and, an all IP core,” stated Batelco’s CEO.
“Investments in technology, in training and developing our employees, in redesigning all processes which deliver value to a customer and in benchmarking what we do versus the best telecommunications companies in the world, are transforming our operating culture, as is competition. We have embraced competition, and the prospect of losing some of our customers to one of the other 45 Licensed Operators in Bahrain, is motivating us to continually improve how we operate and how we transfer better value to customers. Increased competition has accelerated Batelco’s transformation to a more customer driven company.”
“Satisfying customers is a task that never ends and we are committed, through various investment programmes and other initiatives to continuously improve their experience,” Mr. Kaliaropoulos stressed.
“A number of Other Licensed Operators (OLOs) are already using Batelco’s network to deliver services in Bahrain. We welcome the opportunity to support such companies and enable them to offer value-added services in the market and compete with us under different brands.”
“However, we remain concerned with any regulatory intervention from the TRA which reduces Batelco’s ability to obtain a reasonable commercial return for its investments in such network infrastructure. The implementation of appropriate regulatory policy, within the context of the Bahraini market, remains the single most critical factor which will affect our commercial results in the future,” explained Mr Kaliaropoulos.
“Our customers remain our focus. To remain competitive and relevant to our customers, we will have to accelerate Batelco’s transformation programme in Bahrain, should the impact of regulatory decisions be severe when the TRA announce the preliminary conclusions of their Strategic Review by the end of February, as previously announced.”
“We will continue to drive improvement across all our operations and we recognise that to remain successful and win in a competitive market in 2008 and beyond, we must continuously improve, and change faster than our competitors.”
Mr. Kaliaropoulos went on to say that the company has launched “Danat Batelco” a company wide initiative to enhance their customer driven operating culture across all their employees and ensure that Batelco is consistently delivering a first class customer experience. “Such customer focus means a wider range of products and services at lower prices and consistent customer care resulting from operational effectiveness and better management of our costs,” he said.
To meet the transformational needs of the company, Batelco continues to invest significantly in staff training & development. During 2007, $3.75 million was invested and 90% of employees attended various training & development initiatives including e-learning programmes.
Batelco, which employs over 1600 staff in Bahrain, 93% of whom are Bahraini nationals, was also awarded and recognised by the Ministry of Labour as the best company in the Kingdom for Bahrainisation levels and developing Human Resources in 2007.
During 2007 Batelco continued to extend its operations to an addressable market with over 60m people across the Middle East. The Batelco Group, through its subsidiary Umniah, celebrated the successful launch of WiMax based broadband services to the Jordanian market. Umniah launched WiMax under the trademark UMAX, becoming the first operator to offer the long-awaited services that will change the telecom map in Jordan. A further milestone for Umniah was achieving 1.2 million mobile customers by end of December 07.
“Our regional expansion continued by acquiring 20% shareholding in Sabafon, Yemen's leading mobile company with 1.6 million customers, launching ICT business solutions in Kuwait and winning one of two WiMax licences in Saudi Arabia, which will allow us to offer wireless broadband, data solutions and voice services nationwide by the end of 2008,” Mr. Kaliaropoulos said.
“Our strategy to expand has resulted in over 1.8 m mobile customers between Jordan and Bahrain, 85,000 broadband customers in Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan and over 1.6m mobile customers in Yemen.”
“We aim to further our expansion plans in 2008 via appropriate acquisitions and new licences. By increasing our scale and accessing high growth markets, our customers will ultimately benefit from future investments in technology and innovation whilst our people will have the opportunity to contribute to our operations in Bahrain and our overseas ventures,” he added.
Shaikh Hamad concluded by saying, “We are pleased that the contribution of our employees and managers resulted in a record performance for Batelco in 2007.” “Our employees’ willingness to embrace change and transform Batelco into one of the most competitive companies in the region, has been admirable. Their efforts had a direct impact on our results, and the Board and Management are grateful.”
“In recognition of our employees’ contribution to Batelco’s record results we are delighted to announce that the Board approved the payment of an extra one month’s salary to employees, to be paid 31st January. This bonus payment is an additional reward to Batelco’s normal performance based annual bonuses which will be paid next month,” he added.
© 2008 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
