Zain, Kuwait’s biggest telecommunications operator by subscribers, reported a 9 per cent year-on-year fall in first-quarter profit on Sunday, extending a sustained earnings slump as foreign exhange losses increased.
The former monopoly, which operates in eight countries in the Middle East and Africa, made a net profit of 37 million Kuwaiti dinars in the three months to March 31, it said in a statement.
Analysts at EFG Hermes and SICO Bahrain had forecast Zain would make a quarterly profit of 39.11m dinars and 38.4m dinars respectively.
The firm had posted falling profits in six of the preceding seven quarters as tougher domestic competition, service interruptions and higher costs in war-torn Iraq, and foreign exchange volatility weighed on the bottom line.
Zain said its first-quarter foreign currency losses were predominantly from Iraq and totalled US$35m, up from $7m a year earlier.
First-quarter revenue was 277m dinars, down slightly on the prior-year period’s 278.9m dinars.
In Kuwait, Zain competes with Ooredoo Kuwait, a unit of Qatar’s Ooredoo, and Viva, an affiliate of Saudi Telecom Co.
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