Zain Group has revealed its revenue, Opex, EBITDA and profit during the third quarter of 2018.
Zain Group, which has presence in eight markets across the Middle East and Africa, posted revenue of $1.3 billion (+55 percent), EBITDA of $512 million (+48 percent) with EBITDA margin of 38 percent and profit of $167 million (+26 percent) in Q3 2018.
Kuwait based Zain said in a statement that the number of customers rose 5 percent to 47.8 million.
The revenue growth was fuelled by the launch of customer centric digital services across key markets resulting into 50 percent growth in data revenues. Data revenue represents 31 percent of Zain Group revenue.
It should be noted that the substantial growth is predominantly due to the consolidation of Zain KSA results in Q3 2018.
Zain Group CEO Bader Nasser Al-Kharafi said: “We are strategically transforming ourselves from being a pure telecom provider to a digital services provider.”
Zain generated revenue of $826 million from Kuwait, $853 million from Iraq, $253 million from Sudan, $1.5 billion from Saudi Arabia, $369 million from Jordan and $30 million from Bahrain for the nine months ended 30 September, 2018.
Zain investments
The operator has launched BEAM, the advanced wireless broadband technology, offering speeds that match fiber optics speeds, reaching up 40 Mbps. Zain did not announce specific details about its 5G investment plans.
Zain has tied up with Microsoft to provide cloud solutions to enterprise customers in Kuwait and Cisco to deliver managed network solutions to enterprises and several global entities to employ Internet of Things (IoT) solutions.
Zain Kuwait has launched zBot to offer the interactive customer care solution in Kuwait. This customer service channel utilizes the latest artificial intelligence (AI) solutions to interact and respond to customer inquiries.
Zain Kuwait launched eSIM services, an electronic SIM that replaces the traditional physical SIM card that is embedded in the device and allows customers to add up to 10 numbers in one device.
Zain Iraq expanded 3.9G services across the country by adding 345 new sites and restoring 97 percent of sites in the West and North.
Zain Jordan has expanded 4G services across the country and data revenues represented 38 percent of total revenues.
