Qatar’s Ooredoo Q3 profit falls 51%

Qatari telecom operator Ooredoo reported a 51 per cent fall in third-quarter net profit on Sunday.

The earnings of the former monopoly, which operates in about a dozen territories across the Middle East, Africa and Asia, have been hit from mid-2013 by foreign exchange losses and plunging earnings from Iraq, although a strong domestic performance has helped mitigate the impact.

After a period of volatile profitability, the firm had reported rising profits in the previous four quarters.

Ooredoo made a net profit of QAR370m in the three months to September 30, it said in a statement, compared with a profit of QAR755.8m in the year-earlier period.

The average forecast of three analysts polled by Reuters was for a quarterly profit of QAR499.3m.

Ooredoo’s consolidated third-quarter revenue was QAR8.35bn, versus QAR8.16bn a year ago.

In Qatar, the company’s nine month net profit rose 2 per cent to QAR1.6bn.

In Iraq, where parts of the country have been under the control of militant group Islamic State, Ooredoo unit Asiacell made a nine month profit of QAR79m, down 48 per cent from a year ago.