WAM Dubai, May 10th, 2012 (WAM) -- Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company PJSC (du) today announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2012.

Financial highlights for the quarter released by the company showed that revenues increased 20.1% year on year to AED 2.4 billion, up from AED 2.0 billion in Q1 2011. The mobile revenue increased 21.8%, growing to AED 1.9 billion and mobile data revenue grew to 15.5% of mobile revenues , more than doubled to AED 297 million from AED 141 million in Q1 2011.

Post-paid mobile customer base contributed 48.6% of the growth in mobile revenues. Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization (EBITDA) increased by 49.0% year on year to reach AED 925 million, EBITDA margin grew to 37.8%, up from 30.5% in Q1 2011.

The net profit before royalty increased 61.8% reaching AED 666 million compared to AED 412 million in Q1 2011. Net profit margin (before royalty) increased to 27.2% from 20.2% in Q1 2011.

During the aforementioned quarter 320,600 mobile customers were added, bringing total mobile customer base to 5.5 million. In that 50,400 postpaid mobile customers were added, now representing 7.5% of the mobile customer base. Fixed line subscribers increased to 545,300; a 13.5% increase from Q1 2011.

Osman Sultan, du's Chief Executive Officer, said, "We have enjoyed a strong start to the year. We have achieved healthy growth in revenues, with strong performance from what we believe will be key drivers going forward, including mobile data revenue and our post-paid subscriber base. Our mobile data revenues in particular more than doubled year on year. We believe this will continue to grow in importance as a revenue stream, and we will seek to continue developing innovative products and services that encourage data usage.

While top-line growth has been significant, it has more importantly been achieved with greater efficiency. Our EBITDA and net profit have both grown significantly, with margins both increasing by more than seven percentage points, an achievement we are very pleased with.

Delivering value is at the heart of everything we do and is considered in every strategic decision. We believe that the areas we are focusing on will deliver the greatest value to all of our stakeholders - our customers, our employees, and of course our shareholders." WAM/AM